ThePhyllospondyli is a now abandoned term for a series of small, poorly ossified fossils oflabyrinthodont amphibians from thePaleozoic. The groups was proposed as anorder on the basis if their vertebrae, which was either consisting ofneural arches over an otherwise unossifiednotocord or consisting of thin-walled, ring-shapedintercentra topped by the neural arch. The namepyllospondily is fromGreek, "leaf vertebrae".^[1]

While the group originally was based on the shape of the vertebrae, common inolder classification of labyrinthodonts, several families was at times assigned to it based on skull characters. All members were more or lesssalamander-like in body outline, with weak, poorly ossified limbs, four fingers to the hand and a more or less roundskull when seen from above. Remains of larvalgills were frequently found. What animals was actually assigned to the group varies, Case (1946) gave four families that he confidently assigned to the order:Branchiosauridae (now known to be larvalTemnospondyli),Eugyrinidae (various temnospondyl andanthracosaur groups),Melanerpetontidae andMicrobatrachidae (now abandoned).^[1] The group as a whole seem to have been awastebasket taxon for various small, poorly ossified and/or larval fossils, the families once ascribed to it largely being constructed from similar animals found in different parts of the world.

This article about atetrapodomorph is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• History of paleontology
• Stegocephalians
• Polyphyletic groups
• Tetrapodomorph stubs

• All stub articles