Description
- Abyssomedon williamsi
- **Parareptile
- Lower Permian Age
- Fissure Fill – Richards Spur
- Oklahoma
- This is a complete lower leg with all the footbones and claws. The specimen measures approx. 1 1/2″ long. The specimen will come in a Shown
Abyssomedon (meaning “Guardian of the Abyss”) is an extinct genus of a nyctiphruretid parareptile known from Early Permian (Artinskian age) fissure fills at Richards Spur in Comanche County, Oklahoma.
The generic name is derived from Greek Abyssos, meaning “deep pit”, and -medon, meaning “guardian”, in reference to the cave system at Richards Spur. The specific name williamsi honor the collector of the holotype Mr. Scott Williams, a paleontologist at the Burpee Museum.
**Parareptilia (“at the side of reptiles”) is a subclass or clade of basal sauropsids (reptiles), typically considered the sister taxon to Eureptilia (the group that likely contains all living reptiles). Parareptiles first arose near the end of the Carboniferous period and achieved their highest diversity during the Permian period. Several ecological innovations were first accomplished by parareptiles among reptiles. These include the first reptiles to return to marine ecosystems (mesosaurs), the first bipedal reptiles (bolosaurids such as Eudibamus), the first reptiles with advanced hearing systems (nycteroleterids and others), and the first large herbivorous reptiles (the pareiasaurs). The only parareptiles to survive into the Triassic period were the procolophonoids, a group of small generalists, omnivores, and herbivores. The largest family of procolophonoids, the procolophonids, rediversified in the Triassic, but subsequently declined and became extinct by the end of the period.
