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.
Asselian | Sakmarian Artinskian | Kungurian |
Roadian | Wordian Capitanian |
Wuchiapingian Changhsingian |