Shihtienfenia

Shihtienfenia
Temporal range: Capitanian, 260 Ma
Maxilla of Honania complicidentata, which may be valid
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Procolophonomorpha
Family: Pareiasauridae
Genus: Shihtienfenia
Young & Yeh, 1963
Type species
Shihtienfenia permica
Young & Yeh, 1963
Species
  • S. permica Young & Yeh, 1963
Synonyms
  • Huanghesaurus liuliensis Gao, 1983
  • Shansisaurus xuecunensis Cheng 1980

Shihtienfenia was a pareiasaurid from the Middle Permian of China.[1]

Species

Lee (1997) refers to S. xuecunensis as a metaspecies lacking the autapomorphies of Shihtienfenia. Tsuji & Müller (2009) seem to consider it a valid taxon for cladistic analysis, and like Lee 1997 place the two Chinese species close to Pareiasuchus.

S. permica (Young and Yeh, 1963);The skull of this pareiasaur is unknown. It is known originally from a number of isolated vertebrae, jaws, and limb-bones and an incomplete skeleton, all from a single locality (Shiqianfeng Formation at Baode, Shansi). Shanshisaurus xuecunensis' Cheng, 1980 and Huanghesaurus liuliensis Gao, 1983 are synonyms.[2]

Classification

Shihtienfenia is unusual because of the presence of 6, rather than the usual 4, sacral vertebrae, and may belong in a separate subfamily, although Oskar Kuhn includes it under the Pareiasaurines in his monograph (Kuhn 1969). As with the Pareiasaurines the upper margin of the ilium is flat.

References

  1. "Shihtienfenia". The Paleobiology Database. Retrieved February 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  2. Michael J. Benton (2016). "The Chinese pareiasaurs". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. in press. doi:10.1111/zoj.12389.


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