Limnoscelis

Limnoscelis (/limˈnäsələ̇s/, meaning "marsh footed") is an extinct genus of large diadectomorph tetrapods from the Late Carboniferous to early Permian of western North America. It includes two species: the type species Limnoscelis paludis from New Mexico, and Limnoscelis dynatis from Colorado, both of which are thought to have lived concurrently. No specimens of Limnoscelis are known from outside of North America. Limnoscelis was carnivorous, and likely semiaquatic, though it may have spent a significant portion of its life on land. Limnoscelis had a combination of derived amphibian and primitive reptilian features, and its placement relative to Amniota has significant implications regarding the origins of the first amniotes.

==Discovery and naming== left|thumb|Cast of the L. paludis holotype, Natural History Museum, London The type species Limnoscelis paludis was collected by the fossil hunter David Baldwin between 1877 and 1880 from the El Cobre Canyon beds of the Cutler Formation, New Mexico. Baldwin was collecting fossils in service of the paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh during the bone wars. Although Marsh would describe several specimens from Baldwin's collections, many fossils, including Limnoscelis paludis, would be deposited without description at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale College for several decades.