De Bad farm (Permian of South Africa)

Also known as Waikraal River, Waaikraal River

Where: Western Cape, South Africa (32.5° S, 21.8° E: paleocoordinates 59.4° S, 34.7° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Tapinocephalus Assemblage zone, Abrahamskraal Formation (Beaufort Group), Capitanian (265.1 - 259.9 Ma)

• " [...] Middle Permian Tapinocephalus Zone of the Beaufort Series of South Africa." (Cox, 1969). Kitching (1977, "Distribution of the Karroo Vertebrate Fauna") assigns this locality to the lower Tapinocephalus Zone. This corresponds to the Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone of Rubidge et al. (1995, South African Committee for Stratigraphy, Biostratigraphic Series No. 1).

•The biostratigraphic and geographic position suggests that the site is in the Abrahamskraal Formation, which is of Capitanian age (see Catuneanu et al., 2005, J. Afr. Earth Sci. 43 figs. 24, 25).

• member-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: dry floodplain; hematitic, gray, green, silty mudstone

• Geology comments: " [...] deposited mainly by overbank flooding of large meandering rivers of variable sinuosity, draining an extensive alluvial plain [...]. Deposition occurred under semi-arid climatic conditions [...]." (Catuneanu et al., 2005, p. 236; general description of the environment represented by the deposits of the Abrahamskraal and Teekloof Fms.)
• " [...] preserved in a non-calcareous, olive-grey, silty mudstone (subgreywacke), which shows traces of haematite staining." (Cox, 1969, with regard to Eunotosaurus). No data are available on the host rock of the type of "Pareiasaurus" baini but it is unlikely that it differs significantly from that of Eunotosaurus.

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression

Collected by H. G. Seeley, J. S. Marais, S. Marais, T. Bain; N. Hotton III, J. Kitching in 1889; 1961; reposited in the BMNH, BPI, USNM

Collection methods: mechanical, acetic

• " [...] prepared with acetic acid until any identifiable and well-preserved skeletal elements were free of matrix. The shapes of any superficial impressions of bones were conserved by filling them with a hard-setting plastic before starting to prepare the specimen." (Cox, 1969).

Primary reference: H. G. Seeley. 1892. Researches on the Structure, Organization, and Classification of the Fossil Reptilia. VII. Further Observations on Pareiasaurus. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 183:311-370 [J. Mueller/T. Liebrecht]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 92648: authorized by Johannes Mueller, entered by Torsten Liebrecht on 23.11.2009, edited by Bethany Allen

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Osteichthyes
 Therapsida - Tapinocephalidae
"Struthiocephalus kitchingi n. sp." = Struthiocephalus whaitsi1
"Struthiocephalus kitchingi n. sp." = Struthiocephalus whaitsi1 Haughton 1915 therapsid
BP No. 284 (holotype), skull lacking lower jaw
Reptilia
 Parareptilia -
Eunotosaurus africanus2 Seeley 1892 parareptile
BP/1/3514, 3515; USNM 23099
 Procolophonomorpha -
"Pareiasaurus baini n. sp." = Bradysaurus baini
"Pareiasaurus baini n. sp." = Bradysaurus baini Seeley 1892 parareptile
BMNH R1971 (type)