Dissorophus

Dissorophus
Temporal range: Kungurian, 280–273 Ma
Dissorophus multicinctus skeleton
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: †Temnospondyli
Family: †Dissorophidae
Subfamily: †Dissorophinae
Genus: †Dissorophus
Cope, 1895
Type species
†Dissorophus multicinctus
Cope, 1895

Dissorophus (DI-soh-ROH-fus) (meaning "double roof" for two layers of armor) is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian that lived during the Early Permian Period about 273 million years ago. Its fossils have been found in Texas[1] and in Oklahoma[2] in North America. Its heavy armor and robust build indicate Dissorophus was active on land, similar to other members of the clade Dissorophidae that are known from the Late Carboniferous to the Early Permian periods. Dissorphus is distinguished by its small body size, disproportionately large head and short trunk.

The American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first briefly described Dissorophus in 1895,[3] likely deriving the genus name from Ancient Greek δισσός/dissos "double" and ὀροφή/orophe "roof" to refer to the double layer of armor formed by horizontal "spinous branches" at the top of the neural spines of the vertebrae that "touch each other, forming a carapace" with overlying rows of bony osteoderms that form an armored "dermal layer of transverse bands which correspond to the skeletal carapace beneath," a feature expressed as well in the type species name multicinctus, meaning "many-banded" in Latin. Cope referred to the animal as "a veritable batrachian [amphibian] armadillo."

DeMar [1] mentions Boulenger's interpretation of Dissorophus as “remarkable for an extraordinary exo- and endo-skeletal carapace",[4] reflected in the name Dissorphus multicinctus for its double layered armor.[5]

  1. ^ DeMar 1968.
  2. ^ Gee, B.M.; Bevitt, J.J.; Reisz, R.R. 2019. Dissorophid diversity at the early Permian cave system near Richards Spur, Oklahoma, USA. Palaeontologia Electronica 22(2):1-32. doi: 10.26879/976 [2]
  3. ^ Cope. E.D. 1895. A batrachian armadillo. American Naturalist 29:998 [3]
  4. ^ DeMar 1966.
  5. ^ May et al. 2011.