The Embolomeri is a suborder of Reptiliomorpha

Reptiliomorpha

Reptiliomorpha refers to an order or subclass of reptile-like amphibians, which gave rise to the amniotes in the Carboniferous. Under phylogenetic nomenclature, the Reptiliomorpha includes their amniote descendants though, even in phylogenetic nomenclature, the name is mostly used when referring to...

. The Embolomeri first evolved

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 from reptile-like amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...

s in the Early Carboniferous

Carboniferous

The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...

 (Mississippian). They were strongly specialised brackish or marine creatures, with long bodies for undulating swimming and with a piscivorous diet.

Unlike many of the other reptiliomorphs, the Embolomeri survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event

Permian-Triassic extinction event

The Permian–Triassic extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying, was an extinction event that occurred 252.28 Ma ago, forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as well as the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras...

 that wiped out around 90% of all life on Earth, possibly due to their specialised lifestyle. They later became extinct by the end of Early Triassic

Early Triassic

The Early Triassic is the first of three epochs of the Triassic period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between 251 ± 0.4 Ma and 245 ± 1.5 Ma . Rocks from this epoch are collectively known as the Lower Triassic, which is a unit in chronostratigraphy...

 epoch.
Each of its vertebral centra

Centrum

Centrum means center in Latin.Centrum may refer to:* The central portion of a vertebra*Centrum , a Washington state performing arts organization* Centrum , metro station in Warsaw, Poland...

 is made of 2 cylinders, the pleurocentrum and the intercentrum.

External links

• http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/190Reptilomorpha/190.200.html#Embolomeri
• http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Embolomeri