Anthracosaurus

Anthracosaurus is an extinct genus of embolomere that lived during the Late Carboniferous (around 315 million years ago) in what is now Scotland, England, and Ohio. Measuring around long, it was a large, aquatic eel-like predator. It has a robust skull about in length with large teeth in the jaws and on the roof of the mouth. Anthracosaurus probably inhabited swamps, rivers and lakes. Its name is Greek for "coal lizard".

== Discovery and specimens == === Scotland === The genus and type species Anthracosaurus russelli were named by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1863, based on fossils acquired by mining surveyor James Russell in 1861. Nearly all fossils were found near Airdrie, in the historic County Lanarkshire of Scotland. Geologically speaking, they hail from the Blackband Ironstone of the Scottish Middle Coal Measures. In traditional European stratigraphy, this layer would be dated to the Westphalian B, corresponding to the early-middle part of the Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous). The holotype is a large flattened cranium embedded in an ironstone nodule. Due to the tough mineral encrustation, it would take more than a century for the skull to be fully prepared and cleared of matrix. Subsequent to Huxley's original description, incremental preparation allowed for the skull to be redescribed by Watson (1929) and later Panchen (1977). Other fossils from Airdrie include lower jaw fragments, teeth, vertebrae, and possibly a partial interclavicle. It is uncertain whether the postcranial fossils truly belong to Anthracosaurus. The vertebrae are undiagnostic beyond their embolomerous form, while the interclavicle shows similarity to that of Pholiderpeton.