Name: Belebey
(named after the location where the first fossils were found).
Phonetic: Bel-e-be.
Named By: Ivakhnenko - 1973.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Parareptilia, Bolosauridae.
Species: B. vegrandis
(type), B. augustodunensis, B. chengi, B.
maximi.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: From 35 to up to 60 centimetres long
depending upon the species.
Known locations: France, China and Russia.
Time period: Asselian to Guadalupian of the Permian.
Fossil representation: Many individuals, some
almost complete.
Belebey were bolosaurid parareptiles that lived during the early and mid stages of the Permian. Like other members of the Bolosauridae, Belebey were probably herbivores given that their teeth were most suited to processing plants. The type species of the genus from Russia, B. vegrandis could grow to around thirty-five centimetres long, but B. chengi from China may have been up to sixty centimetres long, though this species has only been described from the dentary (lower jaw). At the time of writing the most recent species to be described was B. augustodunensis from France.
Further reading
- A new bolosaurid parareptile, Belebey chengi
sp. nov., from
the Middle Permian of China and its paleogeographic significance,
Johannes M�ller, Jin-Ling Li & Robert R. Reisz -
2008.
- First evidence of a bolosaurid parareptile in France (latest
Carboniferous-earliest Permian of the Autun basin) and the
spatiotemporal distribution of the Bolosauridae, Jocelyn Falconnet
- 2012.