''Provelosaurus'' is an extinct

Pareiasaur Pareiasaurs (meaning "cheek lizards") are an extinct clade of large, herbivorous parareptiles. Members of the group were armoured with scutes which covered large areas of the body. They first appeared in southern Pangea during the Middle Permian, ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of the

Late Permian Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

found on the road between Aceguá and

Bagé Bagé () is a city located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. In 2020, its population was 121,335 in a total area of 4,096 km2. It was the seventeenth largest city in the state according to the 2011 census. The city was founded in 181 ...

in the Paleorrota,

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Found in the

Rio do Rasto Formation The Rio do Rasto Formation is a Late Permian sedimentary geological formation in the South Region of Brazil. The official name is Rio do Rasto, although in some publications it appears as ''Rio do Rastro''. Geography It is found mainly in the B ...

, aged about 260 million years.http://www.ufrgs.br/geociencias/paleo/pareiassauro2.html Museu da UFRGS The holotype specimen found measures in length.Juan C. Cisneros, Paula Dentzien-Dias and Heitor Francischini. 2021. "The Brazilian Pareiasaur Revisited". ''Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution''

Classification

Originally described as a South American representative of the genus ''

Pareiasaurus ''Pareiasaurus'' is an extinct genus of pareiasauromorph reptile from the Permian period. It was a typical member of its family, the pareiasaurids, which take their name from this genus. Fossils have been found in the Beaufort Group. Descript ...

'', it was assigned to a new genus ''Provelosaurus'' by Lee (1997), who noted it shows more affinities with the small, highly derived, South African dwarf pareiasaurs (called ''

Pumiliopareiasauria Velosauria is a group of Pareiasauria, pareiasaur Sauropsida, reptiles that existed in the late Permian period. They ranged in size from the 50-centimeter-long ''Pumiliopareia'' to the 3-meter-long ''Scutosaurus''. Velosaurs were some of the larg ...

'' by Jalil & Janvier 2005 ) than with the more typical ''Pareiasaurus''. According to Lee, ''Provelosaurus'' bridges the morphological gap between the advanced South African and the more generalized pareiasaurs. The African and Brazilian fauna is often very similar.

References

External links

Elginiidae and Pumiliopareiasauria
at Palaeos Pareiasaurs Permian reptiles of South America Permian Brazil Fossils of Brazil Paraná Basin Fossil taxa described in 1997 Prehistoric reptile genera {{permian-reptile-stub