''Ianthasaurus'' is an extinct genus of small

edaphosaurids Edaphosauridae is a family of mostly large (up to or more) Late Carboniferous to Early Permian synapsids. Edaphosaur fossils are so far known only from North America and Europe. Characteristics They were the earliest known herbivorous amniotes ...

from the Late

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

Description

It is one of the smallest edaphosaurids known, with an skull and a total body length of . ''Ianthasaurus'' lacks many of the spectacular specializations seen in ''

Edaphosaurus ''Edaphosaurus'' (, meaning "pavement lizard" for dense clusters of its teeth) is a genus of extinct edaphosaurid synapsids that lived in what is now North America and Europe around 303.4 to 272.5 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous ...

''. For example, the marginal dentition of ''Ianthasaurus'' is similar to that of insectivorous

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

s, with slender conical teeth which are slightly recurved at the tips, and there is a slight development of a

caniniform In mammalian oral anatomy, the canine teeth, also called cuspids, dogteeth, eye teeth, vampire teeth, or fangs, are the relatively long, pointed tooth, teeth. In the context of the upper jaw, they are also known as ''fangs''. They can appear mo ...

region. The palatal and mandibular dentition is unspecialized, and there are no batteries of teeth for crushing of

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

materials. Also unlike ''

'', ''Ianthasaurus'' was lightly built and was probably quite agile. The skull was similar to that of ''

Haptodus ''Haptodus'' is an extinct genus of basal sphenacodonts, a member of the clade that includes therapsids and hence, mammals. It was at least in length. It lived in present-day France during the Early Permian. It was a medium-sized predator, fe ...

'', a

sphenacodontid Sphenacodontidae (Greek: "wedge point tooth family") is an extinct family of sphenacodontoid synapsids. Small to large, advanced, carnivorous, Late Pennsylvanian to middle Permian "pelycosaurs". The most recent one, ''Dimetrodon angelensis'', is ...

, though they were distantly related.

Discovery

It was named by Robert R. Reisz and David Berman in 1986. It was discovered by them in the Upper Pennsylvanian Rock Lake Shale near

Garnett, Kansas Garnett is a city in and the county seat of Anderson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,242. History Garnett was platted in 1857. Garnett is named for W. A. Garnett, a native of Louisville ...

References

Edaphosauridae Prehistoric synapsid genera Carboniferous synapsids Carboniferous synapsids of North America Taxa named by Robert R. Reisz Fossil taxa described in 1986 {{paleo-synapsid-stub

Description

Discovery

See also

References