Embolomeri

Embolomeres Temporal range: Early Carboniferous - Early Triassic PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Restoration of Archeria from the Lower Permian of Texas.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Reptiliomorpha
Order:	†Embolomeri Cope, 1885
Subgroups
See text.

Archeria crassidiscus.

Embolomeri is a suborder of Reptiliomorpha. Embolomeres first evolved from reptile-like amphibians in the Early Carboniferous (Mississippian). They were strongly specialised brackish or marine creatures, fish-eating and with long bodies for undulating swimming.

Unlike many of the other reptiliomorphs, the Embolomeri survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event that wiped out around 90% of all life on Earth, possibly due to their specialised lifestyle. They later became extinct by the end of Early Triassic epoch. Each of its vertebral centra is made of 2 cylinders, the pleurocentrum and the intercentrum.

Phylogeny

Below is a cladogram from Ruta et al. (2003):^[1]

Tetrapoda	Eucritta melanolimnetes Temnospondyli Caerorhachis bairdi Embolomeri Eoherpeton watsoni Proterogyrinus scheelei Archeria crassidisca Pholiderpeton scutigerum Anthracosaurus russelli Pholiderpeton attheyi Gephyrostegidae Solenodonsaurus janenschi Seymouriamorpha Lepospondyli Diadectomorpha Amniota

References

1. Marcello Ruta, Michael I. Coates and Donald L. J. Quicke (2003). "Early tetrapod relationships revisited" (PDF). Biological Reviews. 78 (2): 251–345. doi:10.1017/S1464793102006103. PMID 12803423.

External links

• Paleos page on Embolomeri
• http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Embolomeri