Baphetidae

Megalocephalus has caught a coelacanth

• Europe ( Scotland, Northern England)
• North America

The Baphetidae, formerly also called Loxommatidae, are a group of extinct, before land vertebrates from the Carboniferous. They are known mainly by fossil skull. There were very few fragments of the postcranial skeletons. They were the first fossil land vertebrates were ever found in layers of carbon and were described in 1850 by William Dawson. Most fossils have been found in Scotland and Northern England. The animals existed over a period of 35 million years.

Features

Baphetiden were probably crocodile -like, large aquatic predators and ate well of fish. On the flat skull they had approaches from sideline channels. Large orbit ( skull window) with a teardrop-shaped extension served as a starting surface for strong jaw muscles were or place of large glands. The upper skull was flat and only slightly higher than the lower jaw. The cranium was ossified heavy and strong. They also showed a trend toward the compression of the lower jaw bone. The lower jaw had double rows of teeth.

Her teeth were short and needle-like pointed. The enamel layer of the teeth was folded like a labyrinth ( labyrinthodont ). The palatine bone was filled with enlarged, rounded at the base and at the tip laterally flattened canine teeth, the palate was closed.

The Baphetidae the pine was first opened by a small muscle that lay behind the axis of the jaw joint and the back of the upper skull ran to the lower jaw. This was later adopted by almost all subsequent terrestrial vertebrates. In fish, the muscle that opens the jaw, connected to the shoulder girdle. The adductors, which closed the jaw, ran at the Baphetidae from the inside of the upper skull to the outside of the mandible.

Genera

• Baphetes
• Eucritta
• Kyrinion
• Loxomma
• Megalocephalus
• Spathicephalus