OBJECT DOSSIER · SMITHSONIAN OPEN ACCESS

Gigantopterid seed plant — Auritifolia waggoneri

SAGE Museum Deep Time scientific dossier

Date / Period

Early Permian — Cisuralian · Early Permian; Auritifolia waggoneri occurs in the Clear Fork Formation of Texas.

Object Type

leaf / compound frond

Medium

representative_scientific_visual

About This Object

Geologic period: Early Permian — Cisuralian

Age: Early Permian; Auritifolia waggoneri occurs in the Clear Fork Formation of Texas.

Feeding: Photosynthetic plant.

Body plan: Once-pinnate frond more than 40 centimeters long in well-preserved examples, with paired elongated terminal pinnae.

Evidence: Frond architecture and insect damage are directly preserved. Its precise higher-level plant relationships remain interpretive.

Why it matters: Auritifolia is especially valuable because its leaves also preserve extensive evidence of insect herbivory, including feeding damage, oviposition and galls.

Plain Language Identity: An unusual broad-leaved Early Permian seed plant from Texas.

What You Are Looking At: Fossil compound foliage with a central rachis and large lateral pinnae.

Ecosystem: Early Permian river, floodplain and pond environments of north-central Texas.

Preservation: Compression fossils; some material preserves fine anatomy.

Find Location: North-central Texas, United States.

Classification Note: The Smithsonian exhibit groups this specimen with gigantopterid seed plants. Published research describes Auritifolia as a probable seed plant with comioid affinities and suggests possible peltasperm relationships. SAGE retains the exhibit provenance while recording the more cautious scientific classification.

Open Questions: Do not state that Auritifolia is definitively a gigantopterid. Its higher-level affinity remains uncertain.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/ijps/2009/170/2; https://doi.org/10.1086/677679

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; title and scientific name matched; current research distinctions retained; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Auritifolia waggoneri

Evidence / representation: Representative evidence-type visual; not the exact specimen.

Why It Is In This SAGE Exhibit

Representative evidence-type visual; not the exact specimen.

The Permian World: Strange Bodies and the Great Dying.

Provenance

Smithsonian Deep Time source scene: Life Changes in the Permian

Exhibition History

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

Subjects & Themes

Auritifolia waggoneri Early Permian — Cisuralian leaf / compound frond Life Changes in the Permian The Permian World

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.