''Rotaryus'' 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 ...

Early Permian 01 or '01 may refer to: * The year 2001, or any year ending with 01 * The month of January * 1 (number) Music * 01'' (Richard Müller album), 2001 * ''01'' (Son of Dave album), 2000 * ''01'' (Urban Zakapa album), 2011 * ''O1'' (Hiroyuki Sawano ...

trematopid dissorophoid temnospondyl known from the Free State of Thuringia of central

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Discovery

''Rotaryus'' is known only from the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

MNG 10182, articulated partial well-preserved

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

and both

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bon ...

s and a closely associated partial

postcrania Postcrania (postcranium, adjective: postcranial) in zoology and vertebrate paleontology is all or part of the skeleton apart from the skull. Frequently, fossil remains, e.g. of dinosaurs or other extinct tetrapods, consist of partial or isolated s ...

l skeleton. The postcranial skeleton includes several articulated neural arches with ribs, most of the left shoulder girdle, humeri, right

radius In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

and

ulna The ulna (''pl''. ulnae or ulnas) is a long bone found in the forearm that stretches from the elbow to the smallest finger, and when in anatomical position, is found on the medial side of the forearm. That is, the ulna is on the same side of t ...

, and a

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...

. It was collected from the uppermost part of the

Tambach Formation The Tambach Formation is an Early Permian-age geologic formation in central Germany. It consists of red to brown-colored sedimentary rocks (red beds) such as conglomerate, sandstone, and mudstone, and is the oldest portion of the Upper Rotliegend ...

, dating to the Artinskian stage of the Late Cisuralian Series (or alternatively upper Rotliegend), about 284-279.5

million years ago The abbreviation Myr, "million years", is a unit of a quantity of (i.e. ) years, or 31.556926 teraseconds. Usage Myr (million years) is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used with Mya (million years ago). ...

. It was found in the lowermost formational unit of the Upper Rotliegend Group or Series of the Bromacker Quarry, the middle part of the Thuringian Forest, near the village of Tambach-Dietharz. ''Rotaryus'' is only the second trematopid species to be reported from the Bromacker locality, and outside of

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, alongside '' Tambachia''.

Phylogeny

''Rotaryus'' is characterized by a unique combination of characters, including the two following autapomorphies: "entire length of nasolacrimal canal exposed as a smooth, uniform channel in which the anterior half coincides with the maxillary-lacrimal suture; and parasphenoid plate has an outline of an isosceles triangle, with the shorter, equal-length lateral margins converging on the cultriform process." The following

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

shows the

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

position of ''Rotaryus'', from Berman ''et al.'', 2011.

Etymology

''Rotaryus'' was first named by David S. Berman, Amy C. Henrici, Thomas Martens, Stuart S. Sumida and Jason S. Anderson in 2011 and 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( ...

is ''Rotaryus gothae''. Both the generic name and the

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honor the Rotary Club of Gotha, Germany, for supporting financially the excavations and the Bromacker locality project.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7370286 Dissorophids Permian temnospondyls of Europe Permian Germany Fossil taxa described in 2011 Prehistoric amphibian genera