Platycepsion

Platycepsion
Partial skeleton, drawn in 1887
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	†Temnospondyli
Suborder:	†Stereospondyli
Family:	†Brachyopidae
Genus:	†Platycepsion Kuhn 1964[2]
Species:	†P. wilksoni
Binomial name
†Platycepsion wilksoni (Stephens, 1887)[1]

Platycepsion wilksoni is an extinct species of prehistoric amphibian, known from partial skeleton deposited in shale at the Gosford Quarry site of the Terrigal Formation in Australia. This specimen may represent a larval stage, as denoted by the presence of external gills, making it the first evidence of larval development in stereospondyls.^[3]

Taxonomy

The species is assigned to a currently monotypic genus, the synonym Platyceps wilkinsonii, a name published in 1887 by the Australian palaeontologist William Stephens, was nominated as the type. A revision in 1964 by Oskar Kuhn assigned the species to the genus Platycepsion to replace the earlier combination, which was invalidated by an earlier use of the name Platyceps for a colubrid genus of snakes. Another revising author John W. Cosgriff named the species as the type for a new genus, Blinasaurus,^[4] unaware of Kuhn's replacement of the name, and placed a second species in the same genus, later separated to a new combination as Batrachosuchus henwoodi.^[5]

The author noted the epithet Wilkinsonii in the first description as commemorating the deputy chair of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, C. S. Wilkinson.^[1]

References

1. Stephens, W.J. (1887). "On some additional labyrinthodont fossils from the Hawkesbury sandstones of New South Wales. (Platyceps Wilkinsonii, and two unnamed specimens.)". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 1: 1175–1192.
2. O. Kuhn. 1964. Ungelöste Probleme der Stammesgeschichte der Amphibien und Reptilien [Unsolved problems of the phylogeny of amphibians and reptiles]. Jahreshefte des Vereins für vaterländische Naturkunde in Württemberg 118/119:293-325
3. Witzmann, Florian; Schoch, Rainer R. (November 2022). "The larval brachyopid Platycepsion wilkinsoni from the Triassic of New South Wales provides insight into the stereospondyl life cycle". Journal of Paleontology. 96 (6): 1447–1460. doi:10.1017/jpa.2022.57. ISSN 0022-3360.
4. Cosgriff, J.W. (1969). "Blinasaurus, a brachyopid genus from Western Australia and New South Wales". Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia. 52 (3). The Society: 65–90.
5. Warren, Anne; Marsicano, Claudia (17 April 2000). "Banksiops, a replacement name for Banksia townrowi (Amphibia, Temnospondyli)". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 20 (1): 186. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2000)020[0186:BARNFB]2.0.CO;2.