Top Results for Permian

Helicoprion is an extinct genus of shark-like cartilaginous fish that lived during the Permian period, first named in 1899. Belonging to the order Eugeneodontida, this marine predator is famous for its bizarre anatomical feature: a symphyseal tooth whorl arranged in a continuous spiral. Because thei...

James Kitching was a South African paleontologist known for fieldwork in the Karoo Basin and for research on Permian and Triassic vertebrates, especially therapsids and cynodonts. His expeditions and fossil collecting helped expand the documented record of South Africa's land vertebrates and supplie...

Christian Sidor is an American vertebrate paleontologist and biology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research focuses on the evolutionary transitions and fossil records of Permian and Triassic tetrapods. Sidor has conducted extensive paleontological fieldwork in Antarctica...

Kenneth Angielczyk is an American paleontologist at Chicago's Field Museum, noted for research on dicynodonts and the evolution of Permian synapsids.

Dimetrodon grandis is an extinct synapsid from the Early Permian of North America. It was a large terrestrial predator with differentiated teeth and elongated vertebral spines that supported a prominent sail along its back. Although frequently depicted alongside dinosaurs, Dimetrodon lived tens of m...

Jörg Fröbisch is a German vertebrate paleontologist associated with the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. His research concentrates on synapsids, the vertebrate lineage that includes mammals and their extinct relatives, with particular attention to Permian and Triassic therapsids. By studying their a...

Bruce S. Rubidge is a South African palaeontologist whose research focuses on therapsids and the Permian-Triassic fossil record of the Karoo Basin. He served as director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand and contributed substantially to the biostratigraphy...

Glossopteris indica is a fossil species assigned to Glossopteris, a widespread genus of seed plants that flourished across Gondwana during the Permian Period. Its characteristic tongue-shaped leaves occur in rocks from India and other parts of the former southern supercontinent. The broad geographic...

Roger M. H. Smith is a South African paleontologist known for Karoo Basin research on therapsid taphonomy and the end-Permian mass extinction.

Helicoprion bessonowi was a Permian eugeneodont, an extinct cartilaginous fish related to sharks and chimaeras. Alexander Karpinsky named it in 1899 from a distinctive spiral arrangement of fossil teeth found in the Ural region of Russia. The position of this tooth whorl was debated for decades, but...

Jennifer Botha is a South African paleontologist and professor at the University of the Witwatersrand whose research examines the biology of extinct vertebrates during mass extinctions. She studies the Permian-Triassic and Triassic-Jurassic transitions using paleohistology, morphology, biostratigrap...

Sean Modesto is a Canadian vertebrate paleontologist recognized for his research on the evolution and systematics of early reptiles. Much of his published work focuses on parareptiles and other basal amniotes from the Permian and Triassic periods. He has contributed to the understanding of reptile d...

Ivan Yefremov was a Soviet paleontologist and science fiction writer renowned for his foundational contributions to both evolutionary biology and speculative literature. In 1940, he introduced the scientific discipline of taphonomy, which studies the processes of decay, fossilization, and environmen...

Mesosaurus tenuidens was a small aquatic reptile that lived during the Early Permian and is known from fossils in southern Africa and eastern South America. It had an elongated body, a long tail, and slender jaws containing numerous narrow teeth, adaptations associated with feeding in water. Its dis...

Inostrancevia alexandri is a large gorgonopsian therapsid from the Late Permian of European Russia. It was a predatory non-mammalian synapsid with an elongated skull, powerful jaws, and prominent saber-like upper canine teeth, while some reconstructed skulls exceed 50 centimeters in length. As one o...

Diplocaulus magnicornis is an extinct lepospondyl tetrapod from the Permian of North America, especially well represented by fossils from Texas. It is distinguished by long horn-like extensions projecting from the rear corners of the skull, creating a broad boomerang-shaped outline unlike that of mo...

Eryops megacephalus was a large temnospondyl tetrapod that lived in North America during the Early Permian. Adults could approach two metres in length and had a broad, heavily built skull, robust limbs, and numerous conical teeth suited to seizing prey. Abundant and comparatively complete fossils ha...

Edaphosaurus pogonias was a large plant-eating synapsid from the Early Permian of North America. It had a relatively small skull, a deep body, and elongated neural spines supporting a prominent dorsal sail; many of those spines carried distinctive lateral crossbars. Although superficially similar to...

Robert R. Reisz is a prominent Canadian paleontologist and a professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He specializes in the study of early amniote evolution, focusing extensively on the biology of Paleozoic and Mesozoic synapsids and reptiles. Reisz gained widespread recognition in the sc...

Lycaenops ornatus is an extinct gorgonopsian therapsid known from Late Permian rocks of South Africa's Karoo Basin. Like other gorgonopsians, it was a predatory non-mammalian synapsid with an elongated skull and enlarged, saber-like canine teeth adapted for seizing prey. Fossils of the species help...

Everett C. Olson was an American vertebrate paleontologist whose research concentrated on Permian terrestrial animals, especially early synapsids and other fossil vertebrates. As a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, he helped interpret changes in land-animal communities through...

Estemmenosuchus mirabilis is a large dinocephalian therapsid from the Middle Permian of what is now Russia. It is recognized by massive, outward-projecting bony structures on the skull, including prominent growths above and beside the head. As an early synapsid rather than a dinosaur, it helps docum...

Moschops capensis is a large, heavily built herbivorous therapsid from the middle Permian rocks of South Africa's Karoo Basin. It belonged to the dinocephalians, an early synapsid group that lived long before mammals and dinosaurs. Moschops is distinguished by a massively thickened skull roof, robus...

Cotylorhynchus romeri is a large herbivorous synapsid from the Early to Middle Permian of Oklahoma and Texas, described by paleontologist Everett C. Olson in 1955. As the largest known member of Caseidae, it reached approximately 6 meters in length and weighed an estimated 2 tons, with a disproporti...

Coelurosauravus elivensis is an extinct species of basal reptile that lived during the Late Permian period, with fossils discovered primarily in Madagascar. It is distinguished as one of the earliest known vertebrates to achieve gliding flight, utilizing elongated, hollow dermal rod-like structures...

Protorosaurus speneri is an extinct reptile from the Late Permian of what is now Germany. Known from relatively complete skeletons, it had an elongated neck, a slender body, and limbs consistent with a terrestrial lifestyle. It is classified as an early archosauromorph, placing it on the broader evo...

Ophiacodon mirus is an early synapsid from the Early Permian of North America and a species of the genus Ophiacodon. It belonged to Ophiacodontidae, a group traditionally included among the informal assemblage called pelycosaurs, and had an elongated skull with numerous conical teeth. Ophiacodon was...

Gangamopteris cyclopteroides is an extinct seed-plant species known from Permian deposits of Gondwana, including strata in India. Its leaves are broadly tongue-shaped and possess a branching, anastomosing vein network without the prominent central midrib characteristic of Glossopteris. Fossils assig...

Claudiosaurus germaini is an extinct neodiapsid reptile from the Late Permian of Madagascar. Fossil evidence indicates an aquatic or semi-aquatic animal, and its unusual body form has made it relevant to discussions of early reptile adaptations to life in water. Some paleontological interpretations...