Stegocephali

Stegocephali is a clade of vertebrate animals containing all fully limbed tetrapodomorphs. It is equivalent to a broad definition of the superclass Tetrapoda: under this broad definition, the term "tetrapod" applies to any animal descended from the first vertebrate with four limbs each with digits in the extremity (pentadactyly), rather than fins of their sarcopterygian relatives.

Stegocephali

Froggydarb Dr. Günter Bechly Alun Williams333 Minette Layne · 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
ChoanataPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 109 million years on record.

The record covers at least 346.7 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 201.4 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 12 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 6 of 12 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 4 of 12 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 12 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 12 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 12 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 12 occurrences362–357 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences357–351 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences351–346 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences346–340 Mya — about 1 occurrence340–335 Mya — about 1 occurrence335–329 Mya — about 1 occurrence329–324 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences302–297 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences297–291 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences291–286 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences286–280 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences280–275 Mya — about 1 occurrence275–269 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences269–264 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences264–258 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences258–253 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences253–247 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences247–242 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences242–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–231 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences231–226 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences226–220 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences220–215 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences215–209 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences209–204 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences204–198 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences346.7 Mya237 Mya362 Mya198 Mya

12 occurrences of Stegocephali on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

12 occurrences

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

7 formations

West Lothian Oil Shale — 55.88°N, 3.17°WArroyo — 33.70°N, 99.27°WIsalo II — 18.18°S, 44.93°ENineveh — 39.65°N, 80.80°WGilmore — 39.22°N, 81.47°WRockport — 39.68°N, 80.55°WLimestone Coal — 55.88°N, 3.15°W

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The named rock units Stegocephali 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.

Stegocephali and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Stegocephali and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

51 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Stegocephali, 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

Each of the 12 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 content1

Picture of Stegocephali

Credit
Froggydarb Dr. Günter Bechly Alun Williams333 Minette Layne
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Stegocephali was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itChoanata through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1868)