A new species of <i>Dimetrodon</i> (Synapsida: Sphenacodontidae) from the Lower Permian of Germany records first occurrence of genus outside of North America
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A new species of the sphenacodontid synapsid Dimetrodon, D. teutonis, is described on the basis of a single, adult specimen consisting of a large portion of the presacral vertebral column. The holotype was collected from the Lower Permian Tambach Formation, lowermost formational unit of the Upper Rotliegend, of the Bromacker quarry locality in the midregion of the Thuringian Forest near Gotha, central Germany. This is the first record of the genus outside of North America and, therefore, provides not only additional biological evidence of a continuous Euramerican landmass during the Early Permian, but also the absence of any major physical or biological barrier to faunal interchange of terrestrial vertebrates. An estimated weight of 14 kg for D. teutonis is half that of the smallest, previously recognized species, D. natalis. Sphenacodontid phylogeny indicates that the diminutive size of D. teutonis represents an autapomorphy and is in general accord with the absence of large-sized, basal synapsid predators at this truly terrestrial upland locality. It is speculated that the diminutive size of D. teutonis was probably an adaptation to a truly terrestrial, relatively uplands existence like that represented by the Bromacker locality. Here it subsisted on small vertebrates (and possibly large invertebrates) of the Bromacker assemblage, in which the dominant members in both size and abundance were herbivorous diadectids, and it was unlikely to encounter large predators.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".