Athena Review Image Archive ™
Pederpes finneyae
Skeleton of Pederpes finneyae (after )
Pederpes finneyae ("Peter's Foot") is an early Carboniferous tetrapod in the Stegocephalian order, dating from 348-347 mya in the Tournaisian stage of the Lower Mississippian Period. Discovered in 1971 in the Ballagan Formation of the Inverclyde Group in central Scotland as a nearly complete skeleton, it was initially classed as a lobe-finned fish. In 2002, the fossil was reclassified as a tetrapod by Jennifer Clack (2002).
Pederpes was about 1 m long and had a large, roughly triangular head, similar to that of the slightly later early tetrapod Whatcheeria deltae from Iowa, from which it is distinguished only by a few minor skull and skeleton features. Pederpes is the earliest tetrapod to show feet which face forward and are thus adapted to terrestrial locomotion, as distinguished from the paddle-like feet of the Late Devonian Ichthyostegalia. The ear structure of Pederpes shows its hearing faculties were still more oriented to underwater sound, indicating it looked there for food.
Another important aspect of Pederpes
is its occurrence in the time period known
as Romer's gap (about 358-330 mya), an interval between the end of the
Devonian and the end of the Visean stage of the Mississippian period,
which Alfred Romer (1956) described as showing a marked decline in
fossil evidence.
References:
Clack, J. A. (2002). An early tetrapod from "Romer's Gap". Nature. 418 (6893): 72–76.
Romer, A.S. 1956. The early evolution of land vertebrates. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 100 (3) : 151-167;
Smithson,
T. R.; Wood, S. P.; Marshall, J. E. A.; Clack, J. A.
(2012). Earliest Carboniferous tetrapod and arthropod faunas from
Scotland populate Romer's Gap. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (12): 4532–4537.
.Copyright © 1996-2020 Rust Family Foundation (All Rights Reserved).