Acheloma
Acheloma is an extinct genus of temnospondyl that lived during the Early Permian. The type species is A. cumminsi.

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- TrematopidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Olsoniformes
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Olsoniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At least 2.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 286 Mya to 283.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 298.9 Mya to 251.902 Mya.
9 occurrences of Acheloma on record, most of them in the Permian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
9 occurrences- Permian100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
3 formations
- Arroyo Formation · Clear Fork Group2
- Garber Sandstone Formation · Sumner Group2
- Archer City Formation · Wichita Group1
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The named rock units Acheloma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Acheloma and its relatives
PermianWhere Acheloma and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
119 taxa- Captorhinus aguti5 sites
- Eryops megacephalus4 sites
- Cardiocephalus sternbergi3 sites
- Dimetrodon limbatus3 sites
- Diplocaulus3 sites
- Orthacanthus3 sites
- Aspidosaurus2 sites
- Brachydectes2 sites
- Brachydectes newberryi2 sites
- Captorhinus2 sites
- Diadectes2 sites
- Dimetrodon loomisi2 sites
- Diplocaulus brevirostris2 sites
- Diplocaulus magnicornis2 sites
- Dissorophidae2 sites
- Dissorophus multicinctus2 sites
- Edaphosaurus pogonias2 sites
- Eryops2 sites
- Orthacanthus platypternus2 sites
- Orthacanthus texensis2 sites
- Seymouria2 sites
- Sphenacodontidae2 sites
- Temnospondyli2 sites
- Trimerorhachis insignis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Acheloma, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
8 references- New Specimens of Xenacanth and Hybodont Sharks (Elasmobranchii: Xenacanthida and Hybodontoidea) from the Lower Permian of Southwestern Oklahoma2
- A new trematopid from the lower Permian of Oklahoma and new insights into the genus Acheloma1
- A new Lower Permian trematopid (Temnospondyli: Dissorophoidea) from Richards Spur, Oklahoma1
- Large dissorophoid skeletal elements from the Lower Permian Richards Spur fissures, Oklahoma, and their paleoecological implications1
- Early Permian Depositional Environments of Pond Bonebeds in Central Archer County, Texas1
- Osteology of Seymouria baylorensis Broili1
- Vertebrate faunal horizons in the Texas Permo-Carboniferous red beds1
- American Permian Vertebrates1
Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Acheloma
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Acheloma sp. · fmnh:uc:483
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Acheloma”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTrematopidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1882