Bothriceps australis Huxley, 1859

Warren, Anne, 1997, A tetrapod fauna from the Permian of the Sydney Basin, Records of the Australian Museum 49 (1), pp. 25-33 : 26

Bothriceps australis Huxley, 1859 -BM(NH)

R23110

According to Watson (1956) this specimen was bought by the British Museum in 1948 from a person of whom nothing is known and was said to have been found in " Australia ". Watson considered that the structure of Bothriceps australis suggested that it was as early as, or earlier than, Bothriceps major (discussed below) and subsequent authors have followed Watson in assigning it a Late Permian age. The evidence for this conclusion is tenuous and an Early Triassic age is more likely than Permian. The specimen shows several grade characters common to Mesozoic temnospondyls, such as the loss of the supraoccipital, basioccipital and opisthotic from the occiput, and the presence of a firm suture between the pterygoid and the parasphenoid.

Stratigraphic position. Unknown. A label associated with the specimen says it is from the "Hawkesbury Beds (Permian)". This was probably an educated guess but could well be correct except that the Hawkesbury Sandstone of the Sydney Basin is now early Middle Triassic.