A Mississippian (early Carboniferous) tetrapod showing early diversification of the hindlimbs.
Publication Date
2022-04-14Journal Title
Commun Biol
ISSN
2399-3642
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
5
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Clack, J. A., Smithson, T., & Ruta, M. (2022). A Mississippian (early Carboniferous) tetrapod showing early diversification of the hindlimbs.. Commun Biol, 5 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03199-x
Abstract
The taxonomically diverse terrestrial tetrapod fauna from the late Mississippian East Kirkton Limestone includes the earliest known members of stem Amphibia and stem Amniota. Here we name and describe a new East Kirkton tetrapod with an unusual hindlimb morphology reminiscent of that of several stem- and primitive crown amniotes. It displays a unique ilium with two slender and elongate processes and a 5-digit pes with a long, stout metatarsal IV and a greatly elongate digit IV. The new taxon broadens our knowledge of East Kirkton tetrapods, adding to the remarkable diversity of their hindlimb constructions, functional specializations, locomotory modes, and adaptations to a wide variety of substrates. An unweighted character parsimony analysis places the new taxon in a polytomy alongside some other Carboniferous groups. Conversely, weighted parsimony and Bayesian analyses retrieve it among the earliest diverging stem amniotes, either as the basalmost anthracosaur or within a clade that includes also Eldeceeon and Silvanerpeton, crownward of an array of chroniosaurs plus anthracosaurs.
Keywords
Article, /631/181, /631/158, article
Sponsorship
John Templeton Foundation (JTF) (61408)
Identifiers
s42003-022-03199-x, 3199
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03199-x
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/336138
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.