''Pholiderpeton'' (from , 'horny scale' and , 'creeping thing') 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 of embolomere

amphibian Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

which lived in the Late

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...

(

Bashkirian The Bashkirian is in the International Commission on Stratigraphy geologic timescale the lowest stage (stratigraphy), stage or oldest age (geology), age of the Pennsylvanian (geology), Pennsylvanian. The Bashkirian age lasted from to Mega annu ...

) of England. The genus was first named by

Thomas Henry Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...

in 1869 to include the species ''P. scutigerum'', based on the disarticulated front half of a skeleton discovered near

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

. Associated fossil wood suggests that this specimen died inside a ''

Lepidodendron ''Lepidodendron'' is an extinct genus of primitive lycopodian vascular plants belonging the order Lepidodendrales. It is well preserved and common in the fossil record. Like other Lepidodendrales, species of ''Lepidodendron'' grew as large-tree ...

'' tree trunk. In 1987, Jennifer A. Clack suggested that a different embolomere, ''Eogyrinus attheyi'' from Newsham,

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, belonged to the same genus as ''Pholiderpeton''. She subsumed the genus ''Eogyrinus'' into ''Pholiderpeton'' and created the new combination ''P. attheyi''. The anatomy of ''"Eogyrinus"'' ''attheyi'' has been described in detail by A.L. Panchen. Some

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organ ...

, such as those by Marcello Ruta & Michael Coates (2007) and David Marjanović & Michel Laurin (2019), have argued that ''Pholiderpeton scutigerum'' and ''"Eogyrinus" attheyi'' were not closely related to each other. However, neither publication reinstated the genus ''Eogyrinus''. ''Pholiderpeton scutigerum'' measured in length, while specimens of ''P. attheyi'' had long skull and could measure up to long. The latter species was thus among the largest Carboniferous

tetrapods A tetrapod (; from Ancient Greek τετρα- ''(tetra-)'' 'four' and πούς ''(poús)'' 'foot') is any four- limbed vertebrate animal of the clade Tetrapoda (). Tetrapods include all extant and extinct amphibians and amniotes, with the lat ...

, and perhaps one of the largest of its family, the

Eogyrinidae Embolomeri is an order of tetrapods or stem-tetrapods, possibly members of Reptiliomorpha. Embolomeres first evolved in the Early Carboniferous ( Mississippian) Period and were the largest and most successful predatory tetrapods of the Late Carbon ...

Taxonomy

below is the results of Marjanović and Laurin (2019), only showing

Anthracosauria Anthracosauria is a paraphyletic order of extinct reptile-like amphibians (in the broad sense) that flourished during the Carboniferous and early Permian periods, although precisely which species are included depends on one's definition of the t ...

References

Embolomeri Bashkirian life Pennsylvanian sarcopterygians of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1869 Taxa named by Thomas Henry Huxley {{paleo-tetrapodomorph-stub