Palaeos: Paleozoic		Cisuralian Epoch
Permian Period		The Kungurian Age

The Kungurian Age

The Kungurian Age of the Cisuralian Epoch: 276 to 271 million years ago

Kungurian Life

Plants

Paleozoic vascular flora, which appeared in the Middle Ordovician epoch, died out quite a few millions of years before the end of the Paleozoic, in the Kungurian or earlier. In the Guadalupian, the gymnosperm-dominated Mesophytic flora emerges (although Mesophytic type plants go back to the Carboniferous, just as some Paleophytic plants survive even to this day), and this flourishes right up until the middle and later Cretaceous. MAK010115.

Tetrapods

During this period, for the first time, herbivores established themselves as a major part of a terrestrial ecosystem. Although herbivorous reptilomorphs (Diadectes) and synapsids (Edaphosaurus) appeared during the latest Carboniferous, they remained a minority element of the "Edaphosaur - Nectridean" fauna. But now in the Kungurian we see an environment dominated by medium to large sized herbivores (the pelycosaur family Caseidae). This very important event marked the shift from a food chain based on detritus and carnivory (insectivore/ piscivore/ carnivore) to a more efficient one in which plants as primary producers provide the main input. The Lopingian Epoch (Late Permian) witnessed a succession of impressive medium to large herbivores - caseids, estemmenosuchids, deuterosaurs, tapinocephalids, and dicynodonts - with (apart from the dicynodonts) each "dynasty" flourishing briefly than dying out after only a few million years, to be replaced by a new wave.  The reason for this may perhaps be related to the instability of these early ecosystems, which had not yet developed the complexity and stability of a long-range ecology. A similar situation was evident with the first waves of Metazoa (marine invertebrates) during the late Vendian (Edicarian) through to Furongian time.

Plesion Synapsida (Theropsida)
Order Pelycosauria
Suborder Caseasauria
Family Caseidae

Cotylorhynchus hancocki Olson and Berrbower, 1953

Horizon: Upper San Angelo Formation, Pease River Group
Locality: Hardemann County, Texas
Specimens: postcrania
Length (total): about 6 metres
Weight: about 2 tonnes
Diet: herbivore
Comments: Probably a descendent of the latest Artinskian age Cotylorhynchus romeri, this is likewise a very large, heavily built animal. In fact this huge but gentle herbivore is the largest known caseid, the largest known pelycosaur, and for its time the largest tetrapod ever. In fact it was so big that adults had nothing to fear from any contemporary carnivores. This was a very common animal, and Olson, in his monograph on Late Permian Vertebrates [ref] has created a number of false species based on misinterpretations of this and other species ("chimeras"). The giant dinocephalians Driveria, Mastersonia, and Tappenosaurus, each provided with its own family and since referred to in subsequent paleontological works, were probably based on misinterpretations of this Caseid. This is all the more surprising considering that Olson wrote a monograph on the family.
References: Olson 1962

Later Early Kungurian Age

This is the youngest occurrence of the American sequence of Texas Red Beds and equivalent formations. The animals here are very similar to those of the preceding San Angelo Formation (Earliest Kungurian), and clearly part of the same chronofauna.

Late Kungurian Age

There are no tetrapod beds of undoubted middle or late Kungurian Age. It may be that Ocher fauna of Russia may occur at this level rather than during the Early Roadian, but that is probably not likely. In any case, even if it was the case, there is still a great morphological gap between the early Kungurian caseid fauna, and the Latest Kungurian/ Early Roadian Bairmosuchian- Estemmenosuchid fauna