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Temnospondyli are an important and extremely diverse taxon of small to giant primitive amphibians that flourished worldwide during the Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic periods. At the end of the Triassic most temnospondyls vanished from the fossil record, but a few aquatic forms persisted in East Asia and Australia through the Jurassic, and a few stragglers continued into the Early Cretaceous. Temnospondyli are one of the largest recognized groups of early amphibians with about 180 described genera. The Permian-Triassic extinction event wiped out several families, but the surviving lineages rediversified, and temnospondyls remained numerous through the Triassic before declining in the later Mesozoic era, the last survivor (Koolasuchus) is known from fossils found in the mid-Cretaceous rocks of Australia. Most temnospondyls were 30 cm (1 ft) to 1 m (3.3 ft) in length, with a few forms growing to 2 m (6 ft), and one example, Prionosuchus, reaching lengths of 30 feet. During their evolutionary history they adapted to a very wide range of habitats, including fresh-water aquatic, semi-aquatic, amphibious, terrestrial, and in one group even near-shore marine, and their fossil remains have been found on every continent. Authorities disagree over whether some specialized forms were ancestral to some modern amphibians, or whether the whole group died out without leaving any descendants. (Read more...)

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