''Cephalerpeton'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of " protorothyridid"

eureptile Eureptilia ("true reptiles") is one of the two major subgroups of the clade Sauropsida, the other one being Parareptilia. Eureptilia includes Diapsida (the clade containing all modern reptiles and birds), as well as a number of primitive Permo ...

known from the

Late Carboniferous 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 effe ...

(late Westphalian stage) of

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

It is known from the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

YPM 796, a partial

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

. It was collected in the Mazon Creek site, from the Francis Creek Shale Member of the Carbondale Formation. It was first named by R. L. Moodie in

1912 Events January * January 1 – The Republic of China is established. * January 5 – The Prague Conference (6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) opens. * January 6 ** German geophysicist Alfred ...

as an amphibamid amphibian and the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

is ''Cephalerpeton ventriarmatum''. It was first assigned to

Protorothyrididae Protorothyrididae is an extinct family of small, lizard-like reptiles belonging to Eureptilia. Their skulls did not have fenestrae, like the more derived diapsids. Protorothyridids lived from the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian periods, i ...

by Robert L. Carroll and Donald Baird in 1972 and this placement has been widely accepted.

References

Prehistoric romeriids Fossil taxa described in 1912 Carboniferous reptiles of North America Prehistoric reptile genera {{carboniferous-animal-stub