Dissorophoid
| Dissorophoidea Temporal range: Late Carboniferous - Early Triassic, 310–249 Ma Possible descendant taxon Lissamphibia survives to present. |
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| Skeleton of Cacops aspidephorus in the Field Museum | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Temnospondyli |
| Suborder: | †Euskelia |
| Superfamily: |
†Dissorophoidea Bolt, 1969 |
| Clades | |
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Dissorophidae |
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Dissorophidae
Amphibamidae
Trematopidae
Micromelerpetontidae
Branchiosauridae
Melosauridae
Dissorophoideans are a clade of medium-sized, temnospondyl amphibians that appeared during the Moscovian in Euramerica, and continued through to the Late Permian and even possibly the Early Triassic of Gondwana (if Micropholis belongs here). They are distinguished by various details of the skull, and many forms seem to have been well adapted for life on land.
It has been suggested that they may be ancestral to the Frogs (Reisz, no date) or even the Lissamphibia as a whole, in which case the latter would be included in this clade.
It is possible that the small Permo-Carboniferous Micromelerpetontidae and the large Late Permian Melosauridae may also belong in this clade.
An extensive phylogenetic analysis of dissorophoids conducted in 2012 found that the families Dissorophidae and Trematopidae are more closely related to each other than either is to the family Amphibamidae. Following a 2008 study, the Dissorophidae-Trematopidae clade was called Olsoniformes. Below is the cladogram from the 2012 analysis:
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