Latiscopidae

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Latiscopidae
Temporal range: Triassic
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Temnospondyli
Suborder: Stereospondyli
Superfamily: Metoposauroidea
Family: Latiscopidae
Genera

Latiscopidae is an extinct family of Triassic temnospondyls. It was first described in 1940 based on a fossil skull found in Texas. [1] It includes small sized temnospondyls that are thought to have engaged in burrowing and seasonal aestivation. Members of the group had wedge shaped skulls that are thought to have assisted in burrowing. [2]

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Anaschisma is an extinct genus of large temnospondyls. These animals were part of the family called Metoposauridae, which filled the crocodile-like predatory niches in the late Triassic. It had a large skull about 62 centimetres (24 in) long, and possibly reached 3 metres (9.8 ft) long. It was an ambush hunter, snapping up anything small enough to fit in its huge jaws. It was very common during the Late Triassic in what is now the American Southwest.

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Chinlestegophis is a diminutive Late Triassic stereospondyl that has been interpreted as a putative stem caecilian, a living group of legless burrowing amphibians. If Chinlestegophis is indeed both an advanced stereospondyl and a relative of caecilians, this means that stereospondyls survived to the present day; historically the group was thought to have gone extinct by the early Cretaceous. Chinlestegophis jenkinsi, the type and only species, is known from two partial skulls discovered in the Chinle Formation in Colorado.

Latiscopus disjunctus is a small Late Triassic temnospondyl collected in 1940 by a Works Projects Administration crew working near Otis Chalk, Texas that was described by John Wilson in 1948.

References

  1. Wilson, John Andrew (1948). "A Small Amphibian from the Triassic of Howard County, Texas". Journal of Paleontology. 22 (3): 359–361. ISSN   0022-3360. JSTOR   1299405 . Retrieved 4 December 2022.
  2. So, Calvin; Kufner, Aaron M.; Pardo, Jason D.; Edwards, Caian L.; Price, Brandon R.; Bevitt, Joseph J.; LeClair-Diaz, Amanda; St. Clair, Lynette; Mann, Josh; Teran, Reba; Lovelace, David M. (2024). "Fossil amphibian offers insights into the interplay between monsoons and amphibian evolution in palaeoequatorial Late Triassic systems". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 291 (2033). doi:10.1098/rspb.2024.1041. ISSN   0962-8452.