Pholiderpeton
Name:
Pholiderpeton.
Phonetic: Fol-e-der-pe-ton.
Named By: Huxley - 1896.
Synonyms: Eogyrinus?
Classification: Chordata, Tetrapoda,
Reptiliomorpha, Embolomeri, Eogyrinidae.
Species: P. scutigerum
(type).
Diet: Carnivore/Piscivore.
Size: Between 2 and 4.6 meters long, depending upon species.
Known locations: England, Yorkshire.
Time period: Westphalian of the Carboniferous.
Fossil representation: Skull and forward portion of
the post cranial skeleton.
Pholiderpeton
was a genus of semi aquatic reptiliomorph that lived in England during
the Carboniferous period. However, in recent time there has been
speculation that Pholiderpeton and another
well-known genus named
Eogyrinus may actually represent the same genus of
animal. If this is
true then the first genus to be named would take priority, and in
this case that you be Pholiderpeton, since it was
named thirty years
before Eogyrinus. This might also call for a
change to the family
name the Eogyrinidae, since you usually can’t call a family group of
animals after a genus that no longer exists.
As
an actual animal, Pholiderpeton had a
proportionately long and narrow
body with greatly reduced limbs. This body form meant that
Pholiderpeton could easily navigate through the
clogged swamps and
water systems as it hunted for other vertebrates such as fish and
amphibians.
Further reading
- Pholiderpeton scutigerum Huxley, an amphibian
from the Yorkshire
Coal Measures. - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
London, Series B 318(1188): 1-107. - Jennifer A. Clack
- 1987.
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