Biology:Procolophonidae
Procolophonidae is an extinct family of small, lizard-like procolophonian "parareptiles" known from the Late Permian to Late Triassic that were distributed across Pangaea, having been reported from Europe, North America, China, South Africa, South America, Antarctica, and Australia.
Ecology
The most primitive procolophonids were likely insectivorous or omnivorous, while more derived members of the clade developed bicusped molars, likely either herbivores feeding on high fiber vegetation or durophagous omnivores.[1] Many members of the group are noted for spines projecting from the quadratojugal bone of the skull, which likely served a defensive purpose as well as possibly also for display.[2] At least some taxa were likely fossorial burrowers.[3]
Evolution
Procolophonids radiated in the aftermath of the Permian-Triassic extinction event, adapting to changes in the availability of different food resources.[4] While diverse during the Early and Middle Triassic, they had very low diversity during the Late Triassic, and were extinct by the beginning of the Jurassic.[5]
Phylogeny
The family is defined as all taxa more closely related to Procolophon trigoniceps than to Owenetta rubidgei.[6] Below is a cladogram from Ruta et al. (2011):[7]
| Procolophonidae |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Below are three cladograms that follow phylogenetic analyses by Butler et al. (2023). Analysis 1: Strict consensus of 760 most parsimonious trees (MPTs):[8]
| Procolophonidae |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Analysis 2: Single MPT:[8]
| Procolophonidae |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Analysis 3: Strict consensus of 18 MPTs:[8]
| Procolophonidae |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
References
- ↑ Pinheiro, Felipe L.; Silva-Neves, Eduardo; Da-Rosa, Átila A. S. (August 2021). Ruta, Marcello. ed. "An early-diverging procolophonid from the lowermost Triassic of South America and the origins of herbivory in Procolophonoidea" (in en). Papers in Palaeontology 7 (3): 1601–1612. doi:10.1002/spp2.1355. ISSN 2056-2799. Bibcode: 2021PPal....7.1601P. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/spp2.1355. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
- ↑ Zaher, Marta; Coram, Robert A.; Benton, Michael J. (February 2019). Angielczyk, Kenneth. ed. "The Middle Triassic procolophonid Kapes bentoni: computed tomography of the skull and skeleton" (in en). Papers in Palaeontology 5 (1): 111–138. doi:10.1002/spp2.1232. Bibcode: 2019PPal....5..111Z.
- ↑ Botha-Brink, Jennifer; Smith, Roger Malcolm Harris (September 2012). "Palaeobiology of Triassic procolophonids, inferred from bone microstructure" (in en). Comptes Rendus Palevol 11 (6): 419–433. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2012.03.002. Bibcode: 2012CRPal..11..419B. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1631068312000735.
- ↑ Burgardt, Caroline D’Ávila; Pohlmann, Karine; Fabrício Machado, Arielli; Santos, Mateus A. Costa; Meira, João L.; Pinheiro, Felipe L. (12 January 2026). "A peculiar procolophonid lower jaw from the Sanga do Cabral Formation (Lower Triassic, Brazil)" (in en). Historical Biology: 1–10. doi:10.1080/08912963.2025.2608698. ISSN 0891-2963. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08912963.2025.2608698#d1e642. Retrieved 18 March 2026.
- ↑ MacDougall, Mark J.; Brocklehurst, Neil; Fröbisch, Jörg (20 March 2019). "Species richness and disparity of parareptiles across the end-Permian mass extinction". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286 (1899). doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.2572. ISSN 0962-8452. PMID 30890099.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedCJC08 - ↑ Ruta, M.; Cisneros, J. C.; Liebrecht, T.; Tsuji, L. A.; Müller, J. (2011). "Amniotes through major biological crises: Faunal turnover among Parareptiles and the end-Permian mass extinction". Palaeontology 54 (5): 1117–1137. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2011.01051.x. Bibcode: 2011Palgy..54.1117R.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Butler, R. J.; Meade, L. E.; Cleary, T. J.; McWhirter, K. T.; Brown, E. E.; Kemp, T. S.; Benito, J.; Fraser, N. C. (2023). "Hwiccewyrm trispiculum gen. et sp. nov., a new leptopleuronine procolophonid from the Late Triassic of southwest England". The Anatomical Record. doi:10.1002/ar.25316. PMID 37735997.
Sources
- Lambert, David (2001). Dinosaur Encyclopedia. New York: Dorling Kindersley. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-7894-7935-8. https://archive.org/details/dinosaurencyclop00lamb.
External links
Template:Parareptilia Wikidata ☰ Q133347 entry
 |  |
