biology

Palaeohatteria

Palaeohatteria is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Palaeohatteria rather than just read about it. In short: Palaeohatteria is an extinct genus of basal sphenacodonts known from the Early Permian period (Sakmarian stage) of Saxony, Germany. It contains a single species, Palaeohatteria longicaudata.

Key takeaways

Palaeohatteria belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Palaeohatteria to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Palaeohatteria from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Palaeohatteria is an extinct genus of basal sphenacodonts known from the Early Permian period (Sakmarian stage) of Saxony, Germany. It contains a single species, Palaeohatteria longicaudata.

Discovery Palaeohatteria is based on very young individuals including skulls and partial postcranial skeletons. All specimens were collected at Niederhäslich locality, in Dresden, from the Niederhäslich Limestone Member of the Niederhäslich Formation, Rotliegend Group (Döhlen Basin), dating to the Sakmarian stage of the Cisuralian series, about 295.0 to 290.1 million years old.

Description

Palaeohatteria was a fairly small synapsid, up to 60 cm in length and with a mass of about 3 kg. The affinities of Palaeohatteria to the pelycosaur were first described in details by Alfred Sherwood Romer and Llewellyn Price (1940). They revised the taxonomy of pelycosaurs and synonymized Palaeohatteria (alongside with Pantelosaurus and others) with Haptodus, creating the new combination Haptodus longicaudata. After describing a new species of Haptodus in 1977, Currie (1979) synonymized all European haptodontines, as well as Cutleria wilmarthi, with the type of the genus, H. baylei. Later, Laurin (1993 and 1994) considered Haptodontinae to represent a polyphyletic grade of basal sphenacodonts, and revalidated Palaeohatteria among other genera and species. His revision has been accepted since. Due to the early ontological state of its remains, it is rarely included in phylogenetic analyses. However, it is well established that Palaeohatteria is closely related to "haptodontines" (=basal sphenacodonts) like Pantelosaurus. The cladogram below shows Palaeohatteria phylogenetic position among other sphenacodonts following Fröbisch et al. (2011).

Spindler (2016) utilized use of the name Palaeohatteriidae for the clade comprising Palaeohatteria and Pantelosaurus.

Etymology Palaeohatteria was first described and named by Carl Friedrich Heinrich Credner in 1888 and the type species is Palaeohatteria longicaudata. The generic name is derived from Greek παλαιός (palaios) "old, ancient", and from Hatteria, a proposed common name and generic name (like Rhynchocephalus) to the Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus). Credner considered it to be an ancient relative of "Hatteria". Baur (1889), who considered the name Sphenodon to be valid for Tuatara (while "Hatteria" is a junior synonym, as it is accepted today), claimed that the name Palaeohatteria should be also invalid. He proposed the name Palaeosphenodon (meaning "ancient Sphenodon") to replace it, however his proposal was rejected. Hence, Palaeosphenodon is a junior synonym of Palaeohatteria. The specific name is derived from Greek meaning "long-tailed" in reference to its relatively long tail.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Palaeohatteria

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Palaeohatteria claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Palaeohatteria before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Palaeohatteria ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Palaeohatteria

In research: Palaeohatteria appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Palaeohatteria in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Palaeohatteria is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cisuralian life, Cisuralian synapsids of Europe, Fossil taxa described in 1888, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Palaeohatteria outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Palaeohatteria in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Palaeohatteria means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Palaeohatteria out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Palaeohatteria in simple terms?

Palaeohatteria is an extinct genus of basal sphenacodonts known from the Early Permian period (Sakmarian stage) of Saxony, Germany. It contains a single species, Palaeohatteria longicaudata.

Why does Palaeohatteria matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Palaeohatteria?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Palaeohatteria.