''Macroleter'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of nycteroleterid

parareptile Parareptilia ("near-reptiles") is an extinct group of Basal (phylogenetics), basal Sauropsida, sauropsids ("Reptile, reptiles"), traditionally considered the sister taxon to Eureptilia (the group that likely contains all living reptiles and birds ...

which existed in

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

during the upper

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

period. It was a quite generalized primitive reptile, in many ways resembling their amphibian ancestors. It was first named by paleontologists Tverdochlebova and Ivachnenko in

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

. According to classification by

Michel Laurin Michel Laurin is a Canadian-born French vertebrate paleontologist whose specialities include the emergence of a land-based lifestyle among vertebrates, the evolution of body size and the origin and phylogeny of lissamphibians. He has also made impo ...

and Robert R. Reisz, the genus is a

, belonging to the same branch as

Millerettidae Millerettidae is an extinct family of parareptiles from the Middle Permian to the Late Permian period ( Capitanian - Changhsingian stages) of South Africa. The millerettids were small insectivores and probably resembled modern lizards in appea ...

Procolophonidae Procolophonidae is an extinct family (biology), family of small, lizard-like parareptiles known from the Late Permian to Late Triassic that were distributed across Pangaea, having been reported from Europe, North America, China, South Africa, Sou ...

and other generalized anapsid reptiles. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

is ''Macroleter poezicus'' from Upper Permian of Russia. ''Macroleter'' had an 8 cm skull, and an overall length of 75 cm. It was generally lizard-like in build with a rather flat and broad skull. The teeth were small and pointy, indication it predominantly hunted insects and other small invertebrates. ''Seymouria agilis'' (Olson, 1980) that is known from only one specimen (

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

UCMP 143 277) was originally thought to be a reptile-like amphibian and assigned to the genus '' Seymouria''. The find consists of a nearly complete

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...

from the Chickasha Formation of

. In 2001, the find was reassigned by Laurin and Reisz to ''Macroleter''. ''Tokosaurus'', another parareptile thought to be closely related to ''Macroleter'', has also been reassigned to ''Macroleter'' and considered to be a juvenile of ''M. poezicus'' as they are known from the same locality.

References

Pareiasauromorpha Permian reptiles Extinct animals of Russia Prehistoric reptile genera {{paleo-reptile-stub