Palaeohatteria - Description

Description

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).



Edaphosauridae


Sphenacodontia

Haptodus garnettensis




Palaeohatteria longicaudata



Pantelosaurus saxonicus



Ianthodon schultzei




Cutleria wilmarthi


Sphenacodontoidea

Therapsida


Sphenacodontidae

Secodontosaurus obtusidens




Cryptovenator hirschbergeri




Sphenacodon



Ctenospondylus



Dimetrodon










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