Paleothyris

Taxobox
name = "Paleothyris"
fossil_range = Mid to Late Carboniferous (Middle Pennsylvanian)


image_caption = Artist's life restoration of "Paleothyris"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
ordo = Captorhinida
subordo = Captorhinomorpha
familia = Protorothyrididae
genus = "Paleothyris"
genus_authority=Carroll, 1969
subdivision_ranks=Species
subdivision=
*"P. acadiana" Carroll, 1969 (type)

"Paleothyris" was a small, agile, lizard-like reptile which lived in the Middle Pennsylvanian epoch in Nova Scotia and is the oldest known amniote. "Paleothyris" had sharp teeth and large eyes, meaning that it was a nocturnal hunter. It was about a foot long. It probably fed on insects and other smaller animals found on the floor of its forest home. "Paleothyris" was an early sauropsid, yet it still had some features that were more primitive, more tetrapod-like than reptile-like, especially its skull, which lacked fenestrae, holes found in the skulls of most modern reptiles, as well as other animals.

ee also

* "Hylonomus"
* "Petrolacosaurus"
* "Westlothiana"
* "Archaeothyris"
* Carboniferous tetrapods