Name:
Counillonia.
Phonetic: Cou-nil-lo-ne-ah.
Named By: C. Olivier, B. Battail, S.
Bourquin, C. Rossignol, J.-S. Steyer & N.-E.
Jalil - 2019.
Classification: Chordata, Therapsida,
Dicynodontia, Dicynodontoidea.
Species: C. superoculis
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Skull 16 centimetres long.
Known locations: Laos, Luang Prabang Basin -
Purple Claystone Formation.
Time period: Late Permian/Early Triassic.
Fossil representation: Partial skull.
Counillonia
is a genus of dicynodont therapsid
that lived in Asia approximately
about the time of the Late Permian to early Triassic. This would
make the Counillonia genus a survivor of the Late
Permian extinction,
possibly the biggest mass extinction in the planets history.
Counillonia is not the only dicynodont genus to
have made it into the
Triassic others such as Lystrosaurus
are known to have done as well.
But the Counillonia genus differs from these forms
in that the genus
appears to be more loosely related to the genus Dicynodon.
This has
revealed the possibility that more evolutionary lines of dicynodonts
survived the Late Permian extinction than previously thought.
Further reading
- New dicynodonts (Therapsida, Anomodontia) from near the
Permo-Triassic boundary of Laos: implications for dicynodont
survivorship across the Permo-Triassic mass extinction and the
paleobiogeography of Southeast Asian blocks. - Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology. - C. Olivier, B. Battail, S.
Bourquin, C. Rossignol, J.-S. Steyer & N.-E.
Jalil - 2019.