Stereospondylomorpha
Extinct clade of temnospondyls
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Stereospondylomorpha is a clade of temnospondyls. It includes the superfamily Archegosauroidea and the more diverse group Stereospondyli.[1][2] Stereospondylomorpha was first proposed by Yates and Warren (2000), who found Archegosauroidea and Stereospondyli to be sister taxa in their phylogenetic analysis. A similar clade is Archegosauriformes, named by Schoch and Milner (2000), which includes Stereospondyli and some Permian temnospondyls that are similar in appearance to stereospondyls, including the archegosauroids.[3] However, according to Schoch and Milner's phylogeny, Archegosauroidea is a paraphyletic group of taxa that are successively basal to Stereospondyli, rather than a monophyletic sister taxon.[4]
| Stereospondylomorphs Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| |
| Life restoration of Prionosuchus plummeri | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Tetrapoda |
| Order: | †Temnospondyli |
| Clade: | †Limnarchia |
| Clade: | †Stereospondylomorpha Yates and Warren, 2000 |
| Clades | |
Chinlestegophis, a putative Triassic stereospondyl considered to be related to metoposauroids such as Rileymillerus, has been noted to share many features with caecilians, a living group of legless burrowing amphibians. If Chinlestegophis is indeed both an advanced stereospondyl and a relative of caecilians, this means that stereospondylomorphs (in the form of caecilians) survived to the present day.[5]
