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The Cisuralian, also known as the Early Permian and the Lower Permian,

Fauna[]

The Cisuralian, a period of well over 20 million years, was - as far as the terrestrial ecosystem went - a fairly stable period ruled over by a diverse selection of pelycosaurs, including the large sphenacodontid finbacks such as the carnivorous Dimetrodon, Ctenospondylus, and Secodontosaurus, all of which attained a lengths of up to 3 meters, as well as semi-aquatic ophiacodonts and the big temnospondyl Eryops and smaller eel-like anthracosaur Archeria.

Life in the Cisuralian was strongly tied to water and to a plant-arthropod-fish food chain; Diadectes and Edaphosaurus were the only herbivores. In this respect it continued the pattern of the great Carboniferous coal swamps. The drier upland was inhabited by a different fauna, mostly smaller insectivores with the herbivorous caseids and proto-therapsid Tetraceratops as significant newcomers. Both in the uplands and the lowlands insects continued to represent an astonishing diversity of forms.

Fish[]

Fish from the Cisuralian still includes some of the peculiar chondrichthyans of the Carboniferous, such as the engeneodontids, Parahelicoprion and petalodontids, Megactenopetalus, along with primitive sharks, and a variety of ray-finned fishes, platysomids.

Permian period
Cisuralian
Guadalupian
Lopingian
Asselian | Sakmarian
Artinskian | Kungurian
Roadian | Wordian
Capitanian
Wuchiapingian
Changhsingian
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