SEYMOURIA

extinct genus of advanced amphibians found as fossils in Permian rocks (245 to 286 million years old) in North America and named for fossil deposits near Seymour, Texas. Seymouria had many skeletal characteristics that are intermediate between those of amphibians and reptiles, but the genus occurs much too late in the geologic record to have been the ancestral form of the more advanced reptiles. Seymouria is representative of a group of amphibians, the seymouriamorphs, that include species very specialized in their habits and structural adaptations. Some seymouriamorphs pursued an almost exclusively aquatic life, whereas others, such as the genus Diadectes, became early terrestrial plant-eating animals. In Seymouria, the skull was deep and amphibian in structure. An opening was present in the roof of the skull for the pineal eye, a light-receptive organ found in primitive vertebrates. Numerous teeth grew around the margins of the jaws and several in the palate; the teeth had a complexly folded internal structure of the sort present in early amphibians. The postcranial skeleton of Seymouria was more reptilian than the skull. Seymouria was about 60 cm (24 inches) long, and the body was capable of being raised well off the ground in a stance more reptilian than amphibian. The structure of the vertebrae and limb girdles was reptilian.