Actinodon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Actinodon Temporal range: Early Permian, | |
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| Actinodon sp. at the Museum of Natural History, Autun | |
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| Actinodon fossil from Germany | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Temnospondyli |
| Family: | †Eryopidae |
| Genus: | †Actinodon Gaudry, 1866 |
| Type species | |
| †Actinodon frossardi Gaudry, 1866 | |
Actinodon is an extinct genus of eryopoidean temnospondyl within the family Eryopidae.
Actinodon was named in 1866 by French paleontologist Jean Albert Gaudry based on a holotype skull that was collected by Charles Frossard near Muse in the Autun Basin (early Permian) of France.[1] The status and relationship of the taxon was long problematic because the holotype was thought to be lost, until it was rediscovered in the collections of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in 1996.[2] In the intervening 130 years, a variety of specimens were described by other workers, some of which were attributed to other species or only to the genus level.[3][4][5] Werneburg & Steyer (1999) were the most recent to redescribe material of this taxon,[6] and they referred it to the eryopoid Onchiodon as a valid species, while Schoch & Milner (2000) argued that it might be a species of the stereospondylomorph Sclerocephalus,[7] but phylogenetic analyses have not recovered A. frossardi in a clade with the type species of either genus (O. labyrinthicus, S. haeuseri),[8][9] and Schoch & Milner (2014) maintained it separate from Onchiodon.[10]
Other species of Actinodon remain synonymized with other species: A. brevis and Euchirosaurus rochei with A. frossardi; and A. germanicus with Cheliderpeton vranyi.[11] Several other species have been previously placed in Actinodon after being named in other genera, but have since been restored to their original genera or placed elsewhere: Glanochthon latirostris and Lysipterygium risinense.[12][6] In the present concept, A. frossardi is the only species within the genus, and material of this taxon is only known from the early Permian of France.
