Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:49:06.584Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The oldest microsaur (Amphibia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

Robert L. Carroll ,
Paul Bybee  and
William D. Tidwell
Robert L. Carroll
Affiliation:
Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2K6, Canada
Paul Bybee
Affiliation:
Department of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602
William D. Tidwell
Affiliation:
Department of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Utaherpeton franklini n. gen. and sp., from the Manning Canyon Shale Formation of Utah, is the oldest known microsaur. The horizon is dated as equivalent to the lowermost Namurian B of Europe (transitional from Upper Mississippian into lowermost Pennsylvanian in North American terminology) on the basis of a rich assemblage of fossil plants. The specimen may be tentatively placed within the suborder Microbrachomorpha. It exhibits the primitive character state for many microsaur features, but no synapomorphies are recognized that support a specific sister-group relationship between microsaurs and any other group of Paleozoic tetrapods.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , March 1991 , pp. 314 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrews, S. M., and Carroll, R. L.In press. The order Adelospondyli: Carboniferous lepospondyl amphibians. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Bossy, K. V. H. 1976. Morphology, paleoecology and evolutionary relationships of the Pennsylvanian urocordylid nectrideans (Subclass Lepospondyli, Class Amphibia). Unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 476 p.Google Scholar
Boyd, M. J. 1980. A lysorophid amphibian from the Coal Measures of northern England. Palaeontology, 23:925–929.Google Scholar
Carroll, R. L. 1989a. A juvenile adelogyrinid (Amphibia: Lepospondyli) from the Namurian of Scotland. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 9:191–195.Google Scholar
Carroll, R. L. 1989b. Developmental aspects of lepospondyl vertebrae in Paleozoic tetrapods. Historical Biology, 3:1–25.Google Scholar
Carroll, R. L. 1990. A tiny microsaur: size constraints in Palaeozoic tetrapods. Palaeontology, 33:893–909.Google Scholar
Carroll, R. L., and Baird, D. 1968. The Carboniferous amphibian Tuditanus [Eosauravus] and the distinction between microsaurs and reptiles. American Museum Novitates, 2337:1–50.Google Scholar
Carroll, R. L., and Gaskill, P. 1978. The order Microsauria. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 126:1–221.Google Scholar
Clack, J. A. 1988. New material of the early tetrapod Acanthostega from the Upper Devonian of East Greenland. Palaeontology, 31:699–724.Google Scholar
Dawson, J. W. 1863. Air breathers of the Coal Period. American Journal of Science, 36:430–432.Google Scholar
Godfrey, S. J. 1989. The postcranial skeleton anatomy of the Carboniferous tetrapod Greererpeton burkemorani Romer, 1969. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 323:75–153.Google Scholar
Jarvik, E. 1980. Basic Structure and Evolution of Vertebrates, 2 vols. Academic Press, London, Vol. I, 575 p., Vol. II, 337 p.Google Scholar
Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae. Laurentii Salvii, Stockholm, 10th ed., Vol. 1, 824 p.Google Scholar
Milner, A. C. 1980. A review of the Nectridea (Amphibia), p. 377–405. In Panchen, A. L. (ed.), The Terrestrial Environment and the Origin of Land Vertebrates. The Systematic Association Special Volume 15. Academic Press, London and New York.Google Scholar
Nelson, C. R., and Tidwell, W. D. 1987. Brodioptera stricklani n. sp. (Megasecoptera: Brodiopteridae), a new fossil insect from the Upper Manning Canyon Shale Formation, Utah (lowermost Namurian B). Psyche, 94:309–316.Google Scholar
Panchen, A. L., and Smithson, T. R. 1988. The relationships of the earliest tetrapods, p. 1–13. In Benton, M. J. (ed.), The Phylogeny and Classification of the Tetrapods. The Systematics Association Special Volume 35A. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Schultze, H.-P. 1990. A new acanthodian from the Pennsylvanian of Utah, U.S.A., and the distribution of otoliths in gnathostomes. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 10:49–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tidwell, W. D. 1967. Flora of the Manning Canyon Shale, Pt. I, a lowermost Pennsylvanian flora from the Manning Canyon Shale, Utah and its stratigraphic sequence. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, 14:1–66.Google Scholar
Tidwell, W. D. 1975. Common Fossil Plants of Western North America. Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah, 197 p.Google Scholar
Tidwell, W. D., Medlyn, D. A., and Simper, D. A. 1974. Flora of the Manning Canyon Shale, Pt. II, Lepidodendrales. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, 21:119–146.Google Scholar
Tidwell, W. D., Jennings, J. R., and Call, V. B. 1988. Flora of the Manning Canyon Shale, Pt. III, Sphenophyta. Brigham Young University Geology Studies, 35:15–32.Google Scholar
Thayer, D. W. 1985. New Pennsylvanian Lepospondyl amphibians from the Swisshelm Mountains, Arizona. Journal of Paleontology, 59:684–700.Google Scholar
Webster, G. D., Bremekle, P., Gordon, M. Jr., Lane, H. R., Langenheim, R. L. Jr., Sanderson, G. A., and Tidwell, W. D. 1984. The Mississippian–Pennsylvanian boundary in the eastern Great Basin, p. 406–418. In Sutherland, P. K. and Manger, W. L. (eds.), Biostratigraphy. Compte Rendu, 9th International Carboniferous Congress, Vol. 2.Google Scholar
Wellstead, C. F. 1982. A Lower Carboniferous aistopod amphibian from Scotland. Palaeontology, 25:193–208.Google Scholar