Archegosaurus is a genus of temnospondyl amphibian which lived during the Asselian to Wuchiapingian stages of the Permian, around 299-253 million years ago. The remains of this animal, consisting of at least 90 partial skeletons (mostly skulls), have been found in Germany. The name Archegosaurus was coined by Goldfuss in 1847. Archegosaurus is a member of Archegosauridae and is that family's type genus.
Classification
In 1938, paleontologist Margaret C. Steen described a temnospondyl from the Permian-age Ruprechtice assemblage in northeast
Bohemia. Steen named it
Memonomenos dyscriton on the basis of a skull that was narrower than others in the Ruprechtice. It was classified as an
anthracosaur, a group closely related to reptiles. Both
Memonomenos and
embolomere anthracosaurs had vertebrae that were divided into several parts, including a pleurocentrum and intercentrum. Animals with this type of divided vertebrae were said to be
rachitomi. During the early twentieth century, paleontologists considered rhachitomous temnospondyls to be the descendants of embolomeres, and Steen considered
Memonomenos to be a link between these two groups. Steen also noted that
Memonomenos had large
Tabular bone horns, a feature shared with anthracosaurs. Temnospondyls and anthracosaurs were later found to be two distantly related groups, and paleontologist
Alfred Romer placed
Memonomenos within Anthracosauria. This placement was accepted until 1978 when
Memonomenos was reassigned to the genus
Archegosaurus and classified as a temnospondyl.
Memonomenos dyscriton became a second species of
Archegosaurus,
A. dyscriton.
Biology
Archegosaurus was a fully aquatic animal. A study regarding its metabolism, gas exchange, osmoregulation, and digestion suggest that it was rather similar to
fish, rather than modern aquatic amphibians like salamanders.
[Florian Witzmann; Elizabeth Brainerd (2017). "Modeling the physiology of the aquatic temnospondyl Archegosaurus decheni from the early Permian of Germany". Fossil Record. 20 (2): 105–127. doi:10.5194/fr-20-105-2017.]
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