Archaeothyris

Taxobox
name = "Archaeothyris"
fossil_range = mid Late Carboniferous

---

image_width = 250px
image_caption = Life restoration of "Archaeothyris"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
superclassis = Tetrapoda
classis = Synapsida
ordo = Pelycosauria
familia = Ophiacodontidae
genus = "Archaeothyris"
species = "A. florensis"
binomial = "Archaeothyris florensis"
binomial_authority = Reisz, 1972

"Archaeothyris" was an amniote, which lived 320 million years ago, in the Middle Carboniferous Period. It is one of the oldest synapsids known. It was found in Nova Scotia, the same locality as "Hylonomus", "Petrolacosaurus", which they resemble, and many other early sauropsids. Unlike the "Hylonomus" and its kin, "Archaeothyris" was larger (50 cm, head to tail) and may have also eaten them. Also, "Archaeothyris" was more advanced than the early sauropsids, its jaws were strong, and could open wider than the early reptiles.

ystematics

"Archaeothyris" belonged to the family Ophiacodontidae, a group of early pelycosaurs that evolved early in the Late Carboniferous. "Archaeothyris" is the precursor of all synapsids including mammals.

Lifestyle

"Archaeothyris" lived in what is now Nova Scotia, about 320 million years ago in the Carboniferous Period (Pennsylvanian). Nova Scotia at this time was a swamp, similar to that of today's Everglades in Florida. The trees were very tall, some up to 165 feet tall (Lepidodendron). "Archaeothyris" and the other early amniotes dwelled on the forest ground. "Archaeothyris", like many other early amniotes, probably fell to a pit of a tree stump leaving "Archaeothyris" starving to death.

ee also

* Evolution of mammals
* List of transitional fossils
* Carboniferous tetrapods
* "Clepsydrops"
* "Westlothiana"
* "Ophiacodon"
* "Paleothyris"
* "Dimetrodon"

References

* T. S. Kemp: "The Origin & Evolution of Mammals." Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005. ISBN 0198507615

External links

* [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1b.html Transitional Vertebrate Fossils] - includes description of important transitional genera from reptile to mammal (includes a little information about "Archaeothyris")