Baphetoidea is a

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

stem-tetrapods The Stem Tetrapoda are a cladistically defined group, consisting of all animals more closely related to extant four-legged vertebrates than to their closest extant relatives (the lungfish), but excluding the crown group Tetrapoda. They are thus p ...

. It includes the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Baphetidae Baphetidae is an extinct family of stem-tetrapods. Baphetids were large labyrinthodont predators of the Late Carboniferous period (Namurian through Westphalian) of Europe. Fragmentary remains from the Early Carboniferous of Canada have been tent ...

and several more basal

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

such as ''

Eucritta ''Eucritta'' (meaning "true creature") is an extinct genus of stem-tetrapod from the Viséan epoch in the Carboniferous period of Scotland. The name of the type and only species, ''E. melanolimnetes'' ("true creature from the black lagoon") is a ...

'' and ''

Spathicephalus ''Spathicephalus'' is an extinct genus of stem tetrapods (early four-limbed vertebrates) that lived during the middle of the Carboniferous Period. The genus includes two species: the type species ''S. mirus'' from Scotland, which is known from tw ...

'' (which has been given its own family Spathicephalidae). The superfamily has also been called Loxommatoidea, but this name is a junior synonym of Baphetoidea.

Taxonomy

Baphetoidea was named by

Edward Drinker Cope Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontology, paleontologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist, herpetology, herpetologist, and ichthyology, ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker fam ...

in 1875. The name Loxommatoidea was erected by D.M.S. Watson in 1929 for baphetids such as ''

Loxomma ''Loxomma'' (meaning “slanting eyes”) is an extinct genus of Loxommatinae and one of the first Carboniferous tetrapods. They were first described in 1862 and further described in 1870 when two more craniums were found. It is mostly associate ...

'', which were then known as loxommatids. Loxommatids were later shown to be members of Baphetidae, and Loxommatoidea was synonymized with Baphetoidea as a result. Because Baphetoidea was the first erected name, it has priority over Loxommatoidea.

References

Carboniferous sarcopterygians Vertebrate superfamilies Taxa named by Edward Drinker Cope {{paleo-tetrapodomorph-stub