Petrolacosaurus
Sign in to savePetrolacosaurus ("rock lake lizard") is an extinct genus of diapsid reptile from the late Carboniferous period. It was a small, long reptile, and one of the earliest known reptiles with two temporal fenestrae. This means that it was near the base of Diapsida (it may have been the basal taxon), the largest and most successful radiation of reptiles that would eventually include all modern reptile groups, as well as dinosaurs (which survived to the modern day as birds) and other famous extinct reptiles such as plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and pterosaurs. However, Petrolacosaurus itself was part of
Article
13 sectionsContents
- Discovery
- Description
- Skull
- Axial skeleton
- Pectoral girdle
- Limbs
- Classification
- Phylogeny
- Paleobiology
- Diet
- Environment
- References
- Further reading
Petrolacosaurus ("rock lake lizard") is an extinct genus of diapsid reptile from the late Carboniferous period. It was a small, long reptile, and one of the earliest known reptiles with two temporal fenestrae. This means that it was near the base of Diapsida (it may have been the basal taxon), the largest and most successful radiation of reptiles that would eventually include all modern reptile groups, as well as dinosaurs (which survived to the modern day as birds) and other famous extinct reptiles such as plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and pterosaurs. However, Petrolacosaurus itself was part of Araeoscelidia, a short-lived early branch of the diapsid family tree which went extinct in the mid-Permian.
== Discovery == The first Petrolacosaurus fossil was found in 1932 in Garnett, Kansas, by a field expedition from the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. The party consisted of Henry H. Lane, Claude Hibbard, David Dunkle, Wallace Lane, Louis Coghill, and Curtis Hesse. Unfortunately, no field notes or documentation of their discovery are available.