7.8" Discosauriscus (Early Permian Reptiliomorph) - Czech Republic

This is a remarkably preserved, 7.8" long Discosauriscus from the Early Permian deposits of the Czech Republic. This is a phenomenal specimen, nicely articulated with three of the short limbs present.

There are a several repaired cracks running though the rock and the fossil with some gap fill restoration in the cracks. There is also restoration on some of the digits of the hands/feet, as these small bones typically don't preserve as well.

The skeletons of these animals have been carbonized and are preserved in a thin layer of shale within a thicker group of sandy Permian beds. These carbonized fossils were produced when subsequently deposited sediments built up over the Permian beds and the weight of the overlying rock compressed them, producing a sort of geological road kill.

Discosauricus was a small seymouriamorph that lived in Central Europe during the Lower Permian Period. Many seymouriamorphs were terrestrial or semi-aquatic. However, aquatic larvae bearing external gills and grooves from the lateral line system have been found, making them unquestionably amphibians. The adults were terrestrial. Some of the best fossils of Discosauricus species have been found in Boskovice basin in the Czech Republic.