Procolophonidae is an extinct

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 ...

of small, lizard-like

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 ...

s known from the

Late Permian Late or LATE may refer to: Everyday usage * Tardy, or late, not being on time * Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead Music * ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000 * Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993 * Late!, a pseudonym used by Dave Groh ...

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...

that were distributed across

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea ( ) was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous period approximately 335 mi ...

, having been reported from Europe, North America, China, South Africa, South America, Antarctica and Australia. The most primitive procolophonids were likely insectivorous or omnivorous, more derived members of the clade developed bicusped molars, and were likely herbivorous feeding on high fiber vegetation or

durophagous Durophagy is the eating behavior of animals that consume hard-shelled or exoskeleton-bearing organisms, such as corals, shelled mollusks, or crabs. It is mostly used to describe fish, but is also used when describing reptiles, including fossil t ...

omnivores. Many members of the group are noted for spines projecting from the

quadratojugal bone The quadratojugal is a skull bone present in many vertebrates, including some living reptiles and amphibians. Anatomy and function In animals with a quadratojugal bone, it is typically found connected to the jugal (cheek) bone from the front and ...

of the skull, which likely served a defensive purpose as well as possibly also for display. At least some taxa were likely

fossorial A fossorial animal () is one that is adapted to digging and which lives primarily (but not solely) underground. Examples of fossorial vertebrates are Mole (animal), moles, badgers, naked mole-rats, meerkats, armadillos, wombats, and mole salamand ...

burrowers. While diverse during the Early and Middle Triassic, they had very low diversity during the Late Triassic, and were extinct by the beginning of the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...

Phylogeny

The family is defined as all taxa more closely related to ''

Procolophon trigoniceps ''Procolophon'' (from , 'before' and , 'summit') is a genus of lizard-like procolophonidae, procolophonid Parareptilia, parareptiles that first appeared in the Early Triassic (Induan) of South Africa, Brazil, and Antarctica. It persisted throu ...

'' than to ''

Owenetta rubidgei ''Owenetta'' is an extinct genus of owenettid procolophonian parareptile. Fossils have been found from the Beaufort Group in the Karoo, Karoo Basin of South Africa. Although most procolophonians lived during the Triassic, ''Owenetta'' existed dur ...

''. Below is a

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

from Ruta ''et al.'' (2011): Below are three cladograms that follow

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 ...

by Butler ''et al''. (2023). Analysis 1: Strict consensus of 760 most parsimonious trees (MPTs): Analysis 2: Single MPT: Analysis 3: Strict consensus of 18 MPTs:

References

Sources

External links

Introduction to Procolophonoidea
Procolophonidae Prehistoric reptile families Late Triassic extinctions Lopingian first appearances Long stubs with short prose {{paleo-reptile-stub