Labyrinthodontia

"Labyrinthodontia" (from Ancient Greek λαβύρινθος is an informal group of extinct predatory amphibians which were major components of ecosystems in the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. Traditionally considered a subclass of the class Amphibia, modern classification systems recognize that labyrinthodonts are not a formal natural group exclusive of other tetrapods. Instead, they constitute an evolutionary grade, ancestral to living tetrapods such as lissamphibians and amniotes. "Labyrinthodont"-grade vertebrates evolved from lobe-finned fishes in the Devonian, though a formal boundary between fish and amphibian is difficult to define at this point in time.

Labyrinthodontia

NobuTamura (email: nobu.tamura@yahoo.com) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
ApsidospondyliPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 176 million years on record.

The record covers at least 290.1 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 293.52 Mya to 106.3 Mya.

Permian — about 6 of 17 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 2 of 17 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 7 of 17 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 17 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 17 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous297–291 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences291–284 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences271–265 Mya — about 3 occurrences265–258 Mya — about 2 occurrences239–232 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences232–226 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences226–219 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences219–213 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences213–206 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences206–200 Mya — about 3 occurrences200–193 Mya — about 4 occurrences193–187 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences167–161 Mya — about 1 occurrence116–109 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences109–103 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences290.1 Mya113.2 Mya297 Mya103 Mya

17 occurrences of Labyrinthodontia on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

17 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

9 formations

Portland — 41.69°N, 72.64°WPortland — 42.61°N, 72.55°WPortland — 41.73°N, 72.66°WAmanakskaya — 52.26°N, 54.85°EAmanakskaya — 51.82°N, 54.99°EAmanakskaya — 52.66°N, 53.48°EBalabansai — 41.25°N, 72.17°EKlettgau — 47.71°N, 8.45°EEast Berlin — 41.34°N, 72.77°WBolshekinelskaya — 52.44°N, 54.47°ETurners Falls — 42.61°N, 72.53°WAlamyshik — 40.00°N, 73.00°ESpeiser Shale — 37.25°N, 96.70°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Labyrinthodontia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Labyrinthodontia and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Labyrinthodontia and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

165 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Labyrinthodontia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

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

12 references

Each of the 17 occurrences 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Labyrinthodontia

Credit
NobuTamura (email: nobu.tamura@yahoo.com)
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Labyrinthodontia was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itApsidospondyli through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Owen 1859)