Shihtienfenia was a pareiasaurid parareptile from the Late Permian of China.[1]

Shihtienfenia
Temporal range: Changhsingian, 254.0–252.3 Ma[1]
Fossils on display at the Paleozoological Museum of China
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Parareptilia
Order: Procolophonomorpha
Clade: Pareiasauria
Family: Pareiasauridae
Genus: Shihtienfenia
Young & Yeh, 1963
Type species
Shihtienfenia permica
Young & Yeh, 1963
Species
  • S. permica Young & Yeh, 1963
  • S. completus Wang, Yi and Liu, 2019[2]
Synonyms[1]
  • Huanghesaurus liuliensis Gao, 1983
  • Shansisaurus xuecunensis Cheng 1980

Species

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Maxilla of Honania complicidentata, which may be valid

Lee (1997) refers to S. xuecunensis as a metaspecies lacking the autapomorphies of Shihtienfenia. Tsuji & Müller (2009) seem to consider it a valid taxon for cladistic analysis, and like Lee 1997 place the two Chinese species close to Pareiasuchus.

S. permica (Young and Yeh, 1963); The skull of this pareiasaur is unknown. It is known originally from a number of isolated vertebrae, jaws, and limb-bones and an incomplete skeleton, all from the Shiqianfeng locality near Baode, Shanxi, part of the Sunjiagou Formation. Shanshisaurus xuecunensis Cheng, 1980 and Huanghesaurus liuliensis Gao, 1983 are synonyms.[3]

S. completus (Wang, Yi and Liu, 2019); The first pareiasaur skull from Asia came from this species.

Classification

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Shihtienfenia is unusual because of the presence of 6, rather than the usual 4, sacral vertebrae, and may belong in a separate subfamily, although Oskar Kuhn includes it under the Pareiasaurines in his monograph (Kuhn 1969). As with the Pareiasaurines the upper margin of the ilium is flat.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "†Shihtienfenia Young and Yeh 1963". Paleobiology Database. Fossilworks. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
  2. ^ Jun-you Wang; Jian Yi; Jun Liu (2019). "The first complete pareiasaur skull from China". Acta Palaeontologica Sinica. 58 (2): 216–221.
  3. ^ Benton, Michael J. (2016). "The Chinese pareiasaurs" (PDF). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 177 (4): 813–853. doi:10.1111/zoj.12389. hdl:1983/6d1a4f9b-a768-4b86-acb1-b3ad1f7ee885.
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