Tit Mountain, 21 (Belle Plains Formation) (Permian of the United States)

Also known as Locality 21 (Romer 1928), Locality Vd (Romer & Price 1940), Corn Mountain, Corn Hill, faunal Zone 2, Middle Wichita Group, Texas red-beds, redbeds

Where: Archer County, Texas (33.7° N, 98.9° W: paleocoordinates 0.2° N, 29.4° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Belle Plains Formation (Wichita Group), Artinskian (290.1 - 279.3 Ma)

• "about 500 feet above the Coleman Junction." Details for Faunal Zone 2 of Romer 1928: "Beyond the horizon of Godwin Creek is found a series of beds about 200 feet in thickness, of a transitional character, in which thin and impure limestones are occasionally present."

•the base of the Artinskian is just above Coleman Junction Formation (Wardlaw 2005, Permophiles), and the "Belle Plains" = Petrolia Formation is below the Waggoner Ranch Formation, whose base equals the base of the Bead Mountain Formation (Tabor et al. 2002), which is in the middle of the Artinskian (Wardlaw 2005)

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; red claystone and limestone

• red-beds and "6-inch limestone"

Size class: macrofossils

Collection methods: Not the same as "South side of Tit Mountain butte, TMM 40031" locality (Langston 1986); that collection was obviously made much later than the Tit Mountain collection of Romer (1928), which has less detailed locality data.

•Romer (1928) paper is a review of vertebrates from the Texas red-beds with previously unreported (or undetailed) localities.

Primary reference: E. D. Cope. 1883. Fourth contribution to the history of the Permian formation of Texas. Paleontological Bulletin 36:628-636 [R. Reisz/R. Reisz/M. Carrano]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 28238: authorized by John Alroy, entered by Robin Whatley on 02.02.2003, edited by Torsten Liebrecht, Jana Dummasch and Emma Dunne

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Amphibia
 Temnospondyli - Eryopidae
Eryops sp.2 Cope 1877 tetrapod
 Temnospondyli - Trimerorhachidae
"Trimerorhachis bilobatus n. sp." = Trimerorhachis insignis
"Trimerorhachis bilobatus n. sp." = Trimerorhachis insignis Cope 1878 tetrapod
Authority is not Romer 1928. entered as "Trimerorachis"
 Temnospondyli - Dissorophidae
Aspidosaurus sp.2 Broili 1904 tetrapod
Parioxys ferricolus6 Cope 1878 tetrapod
MCZ 4457 (humerus)
cf. Platyhystrix sp.6 Williston 1911 tetrapod
MCZ 2746 (vertebrae similar to Platyhystrix, Carroll 1964b)
Osteichthyes
 Cotylosauria -
Archeria sp.4 Case 1918 tetrapod
MCZ 2082
 Synapsida - Sphenacodontidae
"Dimetrodon longiramus n. sp." = Secodontosaurus obtusidens2, "Clepsydrops macrospondylus n. sp." = Dimetrodon macrospondylus1
"Dimetrodon longiramus n. sp." = Secodontosaurus obtusidens2 Cope 1880 synapsid
13 Dimetrodon specimens total.
"Clepsydrops macrospondylus n. sp." = Dimetrodon macrospondylus1 Cope 1884 synapsid
AMNH 4012
 Synapsida - Ophiacodontidae
Ophiacodon retroversus5 Cope 1878 ophiacodont
AMNH 4566 (part)
 Caseasauria - Eothyrididae
Eothyris parkeyi n. gen. n. sp.3
Eothyris parkeyi n. gen. n. sp.3 Romer 1937 synapsid
MCZ 1161 (type)
 Cotylosauria - Diadectidae
Diadectes sp.2 Cope 1878 tetrapod