OBJECT DOSSIER · SMITHSONIAN OPEN ACCESS

Early amphibians — Apateon pedestris

SAGE Museum Deep Time scientific dossier

Artist / Creator

Ghedoghedo

Date / Period

Early Permian · Early Permian; the cited Smithsonian catalog entry does not provide a single numeric age.

Object Type

body fossils

Medium

original_fossil

About This Object

Geologic period: Early Permian

Age: Early Permian; the cited Smithsonian catalog entry does not provide a single numeric age.

Feeding: Not assigned here because the displayed fossil does not directly record diet.

Locomotion: Not presented as direct evidence from this specimen.

Body plan: Small temnospondyl amphibian skeleton.

Evidence: Smithsonian catalog data establish age, formation, locality and skeletal preservation.

Why it matters: Apateon provides a window into small amphibian life in Permian freshwater ecosystems and shows how much an articulated body fossil can preserve.

Plain Language Identity: A small early Permian amphibian, Apateon pedestris.

What You Are Looking At: A preserved Apateon pedestris skeleton.

Formation: Meisenheim Formation

Find Location: Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

Preservation: Skeleton preserved in matrix.

Open Questions: Behavior and life history remain separate from what the skeleton itself directly demonstrates.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://www.si.edu/object/nmnhpaleobiology_3342077

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Apateon pedestris

Evidence / representation: comparative_exact_taxon_visual

Why It Is In This SAGE Exhibit

comparative_exact_taxon_visual

Reading Deep Time: How Rocks, Fossils and Time Become Evidence.

Provenance

Smithsonian Deep Time source scene: Fossil Basecamp Education Center 2

Visual source institution: Wikimedia Commons / Goldfuß Museum

Exhibition History

Included in the SAGE Museum Dinosaurs & Deep Time staging exhibit.

Collection & Credit

Media license: CC BY-SA 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Subjects & Themes

Apateon pedestris Early Permian body fossils Fossil Basecamp Education Center 2 Reading Deep Time

ORIGINAL COLLECTION SOURCE

This object page stays inside SAGE Museum. The Smithsonian link below is provided only as the original scholarly collection record. It opens separately.

VIEW ORIGINAL SMITHSONIAN RECORD ↗