Casineria

Casineria Temporal range: Middle Mississippian
Casineria kiddi from the Lower Carboniferous of Scotland
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata
Class:	Amniota (uncertain)
Order:	(uncertain)
Genus:	Casineria
Binomial name
Casineria kiddi

Casineria was a tetrapod which lived 340 million years ago (mya) in the Mississippian. It was a small animal, length about 15 centimeters.

It lived in what was then a fairly dry environment in what is now Scotland. It had a mosaic of 'basal' (= primitive) amphibian and 'derived' (= advanced) amniote characters.

Casineria was at or very near the origin of the amniotes. It may have been one of the very first true amniotes. The only fossil lacks key elements: most of the skull and the whole lower body is missing. This makes exact analysis difficult.^[1]

Casineria was an insectivore. This earliest amniote had five fingers with claws on each hand, and marks the earliest known clawed foot.^[2][3]

Its name, Casineria, is a latin version of Cheese Bay, the site near Edinburgh, where it was found.

1. ↑ Monastersky R. (1999): Out of the Swamps: how early vertebrates established a foothold—with all 10 toes—on land, Science News 155, #21, p328
2. ↑ Cite error: The named reference nature was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
3. ↑ Alibardi L. 2008. Microscopic analysis of lizard claw morphogenesis and hypothesis on its evolution. Acta Zoologica: Morphology and Evolution, 89 (2): 169–178. abstract