Ossirarus
Temporal range: mid-Tournaisian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Sarcopterygii
Clade: Tetrapodomorpha
Clade: Stegocephali
Genus: †Ossirarus
Clack et al., 2016
Type species
†Ossirarus kierani
Clack et al., 2016

Ossirarus is an extinct genus of four-limbed stem-tetrapod from the Mississippian (mid-Tournaisian) of Scotland. It contains a single species, Ossirarus kierani, based on disarticulated skull and postcranial bones from the Ballagan Formation at Burnmouth. It would have had a large, pointed tabular horn and several minor traits shared with Devonian stem-tetrapods. Ossirarus was described in a 2016 study which was devised to fill in the tetrapod and stem-tetrapod faunas of Romer's gap, an interval of the early Carboniferous with few vertebrate fossils. It was one of five new genera named in this study, along with Aytonerpeton, Diploradus, Koilops, and Perittodus.[1]

References

  1. ^ Clack, Jennifer A.; Bennett, Carys E.; Carpenter, David K.; Davies, Sarah J.; Fraser, Nicholas C.; Kearsey, Timothy I.; Marshall, John E. A.; Millward, David; Otoo, Benjamin K. A.; Reeves, Emma J.; Ross, Andrew J. (2016-12-05). "Phylogenetic and environmental context of a Tournaisian tetrapod fauna". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 1 (1): 2. doi:10.1038/s41559-016-0002. hdl:2381/40933. ISSN 2397-334X. PMID 28812555. S2CID 22421017.


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