A diadectid skin impression and its implications for the evolutionary origin of epidermal scales

Autoři

VOIGT Sebastian CALÁBKOVÁ Gabriela PLOCH Izabela NOSEK Vojtěch PAWLAK Wojciech RACZYŃSKI Paweł SPINDLER Frederik WERNEBURG Ralf

Rok publikování 2024
Druh Článek v odborném periodiku
Časopis / Zdroj BIOLOGY LETTERS
Fakulta / Pracoviště MU

Filozofická fakulta

Citace
www
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0041
Klíčová slova Palaeontology;evolution;developmental biology;early tetrapods;skin appendages;scale pattern;palaeozoic
Popis Corneous skin appendages are not only common and diverse in crown-group amniotes but also present in some modern amphibians. This raises the still unresolved question of whether the ability to form corneous skin appendages is an apomorphy of a common ancestor of amphibians and amniotes or evolved independently in both groups. So far, there is no palaeontological contribution to the issue owing to the lack of keratin soft tissue preservation in Palaeozoic anamniotes. New data are provided by a recently discovered ichnofossil specimen from the early Permian of Poland that shows monospecific tetrapod footprints associated with a partial scaly body impression. The traces can be unambiguously attributed to diadectids and are interpreted as the globally first evidence of horned scales in tetrapods close to the origin of amniotes. Taking hitherto little-noticed scaly skin impressions of lepospondyl stem amniotes from the early Permian of Germany into account, the possibility has to be considered that the evolutionary origin of epidermal scales deeply roots among anamniotes.

Používáte starou verzi internetového prohlížeče. Doporučujeme aktualizovat Váš prohlížeč na nejnovější verzi.