''Pteroplax'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of embolomerous

anthracosaur Anthracosauria is an 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 taxon. "Ant ...

. Only one species (''P. cornutus'' Hancock & Atthey, 1868) has been described; the skull table noted is the lectotype of this species. ''Pteroplax'' dates 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 effect, ...

Period, about 315 million years ago. It is known with certainty only from Newsham in

Blyth, Northumberland Blyth () is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. It has a population of about 37,000, as of 2011. The port o ...

, England. At that site, it shared a coal-swamp lake habitat with the larger embolomere, "''

Eogyrinus ''Pholiderpeton'' (from el, φολῐ́δος , 'horny scale' and el, ἑρπετόν , 'creeping thing') is an extinct genus of embolomere amphibian which lived in the Late Carboniferous period ( Bashkirian) of England. The genus was first ...

''" (whose name is a junior synonym of ''Pholiderpeton'' Huxley, 1869). ''Pteroplax'' probably grew up to about in length and was largely aquatic, feeding upon fish and smaller

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

s. It likely had a long, eel-like body, with short limbs and a long tail. Although ''Pteroplax cornutus'' is known with total certainty only from the type specimen (an isolated

skull table The skull roof, or the roofing bones of the skull, are a set of bones covering the brain, eyes and nostrils in bony fishes and all land-living vertebrates. The bones are derived from dermal bone and are part of the dermatocranium. In comparati ...

), Boyd (1978) described both cranial and postcranial elements from Newsham as probably belonging to this species. These included a series of embolomerous vertebrae significantly smaller than those of "''Eogyrinus''". Some of these had earlier been attributed to ''Pteroplax'' by Panchen (1966) but not described by him; a description of them was published by Boyd in 1980. Boyd (1978) also suggested that ''Pteroplax'' was a longer-snouted (as well as a smaller) embolomere than "''Eogyrinus''". In her description of the large embolomere, ''Pholiderpeton scutigerum'' Huxley, Clack (1987) not only showed that "''Eogyrinus''" was a junior synonym of ''Pholiderpeton'', but also removed ''Pteroplax'' from the Family Eogyrinidae, noting that the lectotype skull table of ''P. cornutus'' showed similarities to embolomeres of the families Archeriidae and Proterogyrinidae.

Etymology

''Pteroplax'' means ''winged plate,'' in reference to the tabular horns of the isolated skull table that currently represents the only specimen certainly referable to this taxon.

References

*Hancock, A. and T. Atthey. 1868. Notes on the remains of some reptiles and fishes from the shales of the Northumberland coal field. Ann.Mag.nat.Hist., (4)1, 266-278, 346-378. *Huxley, T.H. 1869. On a new labyrinthodont from Bradford. Q.Jl.geol.Soc.Lond., 25, 309-310. *Panchen, A.L. 1966. The axial skeleton of the labyrinthodont ''Eogyrinus attheyi''. J.Zool., 150, 199-122. {{Taxonbar, from=Q292294 Embolomeres Carboniferous reptiliomorphs Basal tetrapods of Europe