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Romeria prima skull
Skull of Romeria prima (after Carroll 1988)
Romeria is an Early Permian captorhinid reptile found in the Permian Basin of northern Texas. The type species, Romeria texana, was discovered by Llewellyn Ivor Price (1937). The holotype MCZ 1480 is a skull from the Archer City Bonebed 1 site, in the Archer City Formation, dating to the Asselian stage of the Cisuralian epoch, about 299–294.6 mya.
A second species, Romeria prima,
was named by Clark and Carroll in 1973. The holotype MCZ 1963 is
a skull collected in the Cottonwood Creek site, also from the Archer
City Formation in Texas.
Romeria is in the class Reptilia and the family Captorhinidae. According to Carroll (1988), the most basal reptile group are the Captorhinomorpha, who name is derived from that of the type genus Captorhinus, meaning "nose capturer."
In
an alternative scheme, Benton (2005) defines Eureptiles ("True
reptiles"), which include captorhinids, as terrestrial forms who were
still partly lizard-like, characterized by very primitive features,
showing that they had only just diverged from their reptiliomorph
ancestors. They had rounded, amphibian-like skulls, with most taxa
retaining from fish and tetrapods a "pineal eye," or opening in the
frontal bone for the pineal gland. They also had amphibian-like
shoulders and hips (small, relatively weak pectoral and and pelvic
girdles), and limbs (i.e., fused lower leg bones). The rest of their
skeleton was mainly reptilian, with spool-shaped centra in their vertebrae.
References:
Benton, M.J. 2004. Vertebrate Paleontology. Blackwell Publishers.
Carroll, R. L. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, WH Freeman & Co.
Clark, J. and R. L. Carroll (1973). Romeriid Reptiles from the Lower Permian. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 144 (5): 353–407.
Price, Llewellyn Ivor 1937. Two new cotylosaurs from the Permian of Texas. Proceedings of the New England Zoölogical Club. 11: 97–102.
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