Casineria kiddi

Casineria is an extinct genus of tetrapod which lived about 340–334 million years ago in the Mississippian epoch of the Carboniferous period. Its generic name, Casineria, is a latinization of Cheese Bay, the site near Edinburgh, Scotland, where the holotype fossil was found. When originally described in 1999, it was identified as a transitional fossil noted for its mix of basal (amphibian-like) and advanced (reptile-like) characteristics, putting it at or very near the origin of the amniotes, the group containing all mammals, birds, modern reptiles, and other descendants of their reptile-like common ancestor. However, the sole known fossil is lacking key elements such as a skull, making exact analysis difficult. As a result, the classification of Casineria has been more controversial in analyses conducted since 1999. Other proposed affinities include a placement among the lepospondyls, seymouriamorphs, "gephyrostegids", or as a synonym of Caerorhachis, another controversial tetrapod which may have been an early temnospondyl.

Casineria kiddi

Xenarachne at English Wikipedia · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CasineriaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At most 4 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 339.9 Mya and 335.9 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Carboniferous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceCarboniferous340–340 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences340–340 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences340–339 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences339–338 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences338–338 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences338–338 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences338–338 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences338–338 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences338–338 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences338–337 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences337–336 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences336–336 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences336–336 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences336–336 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences340.4 Mya335.4 Mya

1 occurrence of Casineria kiddi on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

1 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Gullane — 56.04°N, 2.83°W

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The named rock units Casineria kiddi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Casineria kiddi and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Casineria kiddi and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

2 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Casineria kiddi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Casineria kiddi

Credit
Xenarachne at English Wikipedia
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Casineria kiddi was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCasineria through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Paton et al. 1999