Nectridea
Nectridea is an extinct order of lepospondyl tetrapods from the Carboniferous and Permian periods, including amphibious animals such as Diplocaulus. In appearance, they would have superficially resembled modern newts or aquatic salamanders, although they are not close relatives of modern amphibians (Lissamphibia). They were characterized by long, flattened tails to aid in swimming, as well as numerous features of the vertebrae.

Camelops · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- LepospondyliPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At least 57 million years on record.
The record covers at least 316.9 Mya to 259.857 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 251.902 Mya.
131 occurrences of Nectridea on record, most of them in the Permian. 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
131 occurrences- Carboniferous22%
- Permian78%
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
36 formations
- Vale Formation · Clear Fork Group23
- Greene Formation · Dunkard Group20
- Arroyo Formation · Clear Fork Group19
- Wellington Formation · Sumner Group6
- Lueders Formation · Wichita Group4
- Kladno Formation4
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The named rock units Nectridea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Nectridea and its relatives
PermianWhere Nectridea and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
416 taxa- Diplocaulus24 sites
- Diploceraspis22 sites
- Trimerorhachis17 sites
- Diadectes15 sites
- Eryops14 sites
- Ophiacodon14 sites
- Xenacanthus14 sites
- Diplocaulus recurvatus13 sites
- Brachydectes newberryi11 sites
- Captorhinus aguti11 sites
- Dimetrodon giganhomogenes11 sites
- Diplocaulus magnicornis10 sites
- Eryops megacephalus10 sites
- Brachydectes8 sites
- Dimetrodon8 sites
- Trimerorhachis insignis8 sites
- Archeria6 sites
- Captorhinus6 sites
- Edaphosaurus6 sites
- Labidosaurus hamatus6 sites
- Cardiocephalus sternbergi5 sites
- Dimetrodon limbatus5 sites
- Gnathorhiza dikeloda5 sites
- Isodectes obtusus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 86 sites for Nectridea, 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
47 references- Morphology, paleoecology, and phylogeny of the Permo-Pennsylvania amphibian Diploceraspis24
- Fauna of the Vale and Choza: Summary, Review, and Integration of the Geology and the Faunas16
- Vertebrate faunal horizons in the Texas Permo-Carboniferous red beds11
- Diplocaulus, a Study in Growth and Variation7
- The Vale Formation (Lower Permian): Its Vertebrates and Paleoecology5
- Early Permian Vertebrates5
- Morphology, Phylogeny, and Evolution of Diadectidae (Cotylosauria: Diadectomorpha)4
- Lower Permian vertebrate localities of New Mexico and their assemblages4
- Vertebrate Fossils from the Lueders Formation, Lower Permian of North-Central Texas.4
- On the fossil Amphibia from the Gas Coal of Nyrany and other deposits of Czechoslovakia4
- New Specimens of Xenacanth and Hybodont Sharks (Elasmobranchii: Xenacanthida and Hybodontoidea) from the Lower Permian of Southwestern Oklahoma3
- Handbuch der Palaoherpetologie / Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology Teil 1 / Part 1 Lepospondyli: Microsauria, Nectridea, Lysorophia, Adelospondyli, Aistopoda, Acherontiscidae3
Each of the 131 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. 35 further references are not listed. 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 Nectridea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Camelops
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Nectridea 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Nectridea”
- 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 itLepospondyli through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Miall 1875)