Casea

Sklettrekonstruktion of Casea in the Field Museum of Natural History.

• Texas ( USA)
• Europe

• Casea broilii
• Casea nicholsi
• Casea halselli
• Casea rutena

Casea is an extinct genus of Caseidae. It is one of the first terrestrial herbivores. Fossils have been found in Texas in the U.S. and Europe and have been dated to the Lower Permian. Casea lived in the same habitat in other synapsids like Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus, and primitive amphibians such Eryops. Casea was first described by Samuel Wendell Williston in 1910.

Features

Casea reached a length of 1.2 meters. The body was heavy and plump with a small skull. His chest was significantly increased. As with other Caseidae the teeth were missing in the lower jaw, while the upper jaw was set with eleven to twelve blunt teeth. Also, the palate was dentate. These adjustments can assume that Casea of low plants, such as ferns, malnourished.

System

Casea is the eponymous representative of Caseidae. Close relatives include probably Oromycter and Ennatosaurus, a distant relative was probably Cotylorhynchus, which was the largest genus of Caseidae with 6 meters in length. The sister taxon of Caseidae forms the Eothyrididae with the single species Eothyris and Oedaleops; both families are summarized to the group of Caseasauria. Below is a cladogram by Maddin et al. (2008):

Eothyris ( Eothyrididae )

Oromycter

Casea

Ennatosaurus

Cotylorhynchus

Angelosaurus

Swell

• Palmer, D. ( ed.): The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. Marshall Editions, London 1999, ISBN 1-84028-152-9.
• T. S. Kemp: The Origin & Evolution of Mammals. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005. ISBN 0-19-850761-5