Adelospondyli is an order of elongated, presumably aquatic, Carboniferous amphibians (sensu lato). They have a robust skull roofed with solid bone, and orbits located towards the front of the skull. The limbs were almost certainly absent,[1] although some historical sources reported them to be present. Despite the likely absence of limbs, adelospondyls retained a large part of the bony shoulder girdle. Adelospondyls have been assigned to a variety of groups in the past. They have traditionally been seen as members of the subclass Lepospondyli, related to other unusual early tetrapods such as "microsaurs", "nectrideans", and aïstopods.[1][2][3] Analyses such as Ruta & Coates (2007) have offered an alternate classification scheme, arguing that adelospondyls were actually far removed from other lepospondyls, instead being stem-tetrapod stegocephalians closely related to the family Colosteidae.[4]
Most adelospondyls belong to the family Adelogyrinidae, and prior to 2003 the order and family were considered synonymous. In 2003, Ruta et al. assigned Acherontiscus to the order as the only known non-adelogyrinid member.[2] Members of this group are very rare; only six known specimens can be assigned to the five known genera with absolute confidence. These specimens are known from Mississippian (Serpukhovian Age) geological deposits in Scotland, and they were among the oldest "lepospondyls" known from fossils.[2]
^ abAndrews, S. M.; Carroll, R. L. (1991). "The Order Adelospondyli: Carboniferous lepospondyl amphibians". Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 82 (3): 239–275. doi:10.1017/S0263593300005332. ISSN 1473-7116. S2CID 84460890.
^ abcMarcello Ruta, Michael I. Coates and Donald L. J. Quicke (2003). "Early tetrapod relationships revisited" (PDF). Biological Reviews. 78 (2): 251–345. doi:10.1017/S1464793102006103. PMID 12803423. S2CID 31298396.
^Marjanović, David; Laurin, Michel (2019-01-04). "Phylogeny of Paleozoic limbed vertebrates reassessed through revision and expansion of the largest published relevant data matrix". PeerJ. 6: e5565. doi:10.7717/peerj.5565. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 6322490. PMID 30631641.
^Ruta, Marcello; Coates, Michael I. (1 March 2007). "Dates, nodes and character conflict: Addressing the Lissamphibian origin problem". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 5 (1): 69–122. Bibcode:2007JSPal...5...69R. doi:10.1017/S1477201906002008. S2CID 86479890.
Adelospondyli is an order of elongated, presumably aquatic, Carboniferous amphibians (sensu lato). They have a robust skull roofed with solid bone, and...
Europe and North America. Five major groups of lepospondyls are known: Adelospondyli; Aïstopoda; Lysorophia; Microsauria; and Nectridea. Lepospondyls have...
non-functional) and at least three extinct groups (Aïstopoda, Lysorophia, and Adelospondyli). There are no known limbless species of mammal or bird, although partial...
vertebrae, mid Carboniferous to mid Permian, phylogeny uncertain) Order Adelospondyli (Cylindrical vertebrae with conical depressions at each end meeting...
paleontologists in the 2000s indicate that Acherontiscus is part of Adelospondyli, closely related to other snake-like animals such as Adelogyrinus and...
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