''Jiyuanitectum'' 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 ...

chroniosuchia Chroniosuchia is a group of tetrapods that lived from the Middle Permian to Late Triassic in what is now Eastern Europe, Kyrgyzstan, China and Germany. Chroniosuchians are often thought to be reptiliomorphs, but some recent phylogenetic analyse ...

tetrapod Tetrapods (; ) are four-limb (anatomy), limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant taxon, extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids (reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (p ...

from 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, ...

Shangshihezi Formation of China. It is known from a single bony

scute A scute or scutum (Latin: ''scutum''; plural: ''scuta'' "shield") is a bony external plate or scale overlaid with horn, as on the shell of a turtle, the skin of crocodilians, and the feet of birds. The term is also used to describe the anterior po ...

from

Jiyuan Jiyuan () is a sub-prefecture-level city in northwestern Henan province, People's Republic of China. It borders the prefecture-level cities of Jiaozuo and Luoyang to the east and southwest respectively, as well as the province of Shanxi to the no ...

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

province, ascribed to 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( ...

''Jiyuanitectum flatum'' in 2014. Plate-like scutes, which formed armor-like coverings on the backs of chroniosuchians, are the most commonly found chroniosuchian remains. They are also the most informative when it comes to distinguishing between species due to small variations in scute anatomy between different taxa. For example, a shallow groove along the midline of the scute is unique to ''Jiyuanitectum''. The flatness of the scute is another unusual characteristic, giving it the species name ''flatum''. ''Jiyuanitectum'' shares several features in common with the chroniosuchians '' Synesuchus'' and '' Bystrowiella'', including the upper surface of the scute being covered in ridges that are mostly oriented perpendicular to the midline, and the absence of a bony projection on the front of the scute called the anteromedial articular processes, which is seen in other chroniosuchians. These features suggest that ''Jiyuanitectum'' belongs to the family

Bystrowianidae Bystrowianidae is a family of chroniosuchian reptiliomorphs from the Permian and Triassic periods. Phylogeny Below is the cladogram from Buchwitz ''et al.'' (2012) showing the phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φ ...

. The narrowness of the scute suggests that it may be one of the most

basal Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''. Science * Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure * Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...

members of the group. The scute of ''Jiyuanitectum'' was found within a diverse Late Permian fossil assemblage in Jiyuan that includes abundant remains of the

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 Permia ...

'' Shihtienfenia'' as well as fossils of two other chroniosuchian species: ''

Bystrowiana sinica ''Bystrowiana'' is an extinct genus of bystrowianid chroniosuchian from upper Permian deposits of Vladimir Region, Russia and Jiyuan, China. Chroniosuchians are often thought to be reptiliomorphs, but some recent phylogenetic analyses suggest ...

'' and ''

Dromotectum largum ''Dromotectum'' is an extinct genus of bystrowianid reptiliomorph from the Late Permian of China and Early Triassic of Russia. Two species have been named: the type species ''D. spinosum'' and the species ''D. largum''. ''D. spinosum'', the fi ...

''.

Therapsid Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented mor ...

remains are also known from the assemblage.

References

Chroniosuchians Permian tetrapods of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2014 Paleontology in Henan {{paleo-amphibian-stub