Palaeohatteria
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Palaeohatteria Temporal range: Early Permian, Sakmarian |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Sphenacodontia |
| Genus: |
†Palaeohatteria Credner, 1888 |
| Type species | |
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†Palaeohatteria longicaudata Credner, 1888 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Palaeosphenodon Baur, 1889 Palaeosphenodon longicaudata Baur, 1889 Haptodus longicaudata Romer & Price, 1940 |
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Palaeosphenodon Baur, 1889 Palaeosphenodon longicaudata Baur, 1889 Haptodus longicaudata Romer & Price, 1940
Palaeohatteria is an extinct genus of basal sphenacodonts known from the Early Permian period (Sakmarian stage) of Saxony, Germany. It contains a single species, Palaeohatteria longicaudata.
Palaeohatteria is based on very young individuals including skulls and partial postcranial skeletons. All specimens were collected at Niederhäslich locality, in Dresden, from the Niederhäslich Limestone Member of the Niederhäslich Formation, Rotliegend Group (Döhlen Basin), dating to the Sakmarian stage of the Cisuralian series, about 295.0 -290.1 million years old.
Palaeohatteria was a fairly small synapsid, up to 60 cm in length and with a mass of about 3 kg. The affinities of Palaeohatteria to the pelycosaur were first described in details by Alfred Sherwood Romer & Llewellyn Price (1940). They revised the taxonomy of pelycosaurs and synonymized Palaeohatteria (alongside with Pantelosaurus and others) with Haptodus, creating the new combination Haptodus longicaudata. After describing a new species of Haptodus in 1977, Currie (1979) synonymized all European haptodontines, as well as Cutleria wilmarthi, with the type of the genus, H. baylei. Later, Laurin (1993 and 1994) considered Haptodontinae to represent a polyphyletic grade of basal sphenacodonts, and revalidated Palaeohatteria among other genera and species. His revision has been accepted since. Due to the early ontological state of its remains, it is rarely included in phylogenetic analyses. However, it is well established that Palaeohatteria is closely related to "haptodontines" (=basal sphenacodonts) like Pantelosaurus. The cladogram below shows Palaeohatteria phylogenetic position among other sphenacodonts following Fröbisch et al. (2011).
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