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Parmastega
| Parmastega Temporal range: Late Devonian,
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| Artist's reconstruction of P. aelidae | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Sarcopterygii |
| Clade: | Tetrapodomorpha |
| Clade: | Stegocephali |
| Genus: | †Parmastega Beznosov et al. 2019 |
| Type species | |
| †Parmastega aelidae | |
Parmastega is an extinct genus of stem tetrapod from the Devonian, dated to the earliest Famennian age (about 372 million years ago), in contrast to later fossils known from late Famennian (365–359 million years ago). These later fossils are considerably younger, by about 30 million years, than the earliest recorded tetrapod footprints, which presented a mystery that Parmastega's more recently described morphology from a three dimensional reconstruction has helped provide light on.
One remaining mystery is what exactly it hunted. There were large invertebrates on land but they were not necessarily common. It is faintly possible it hunted other shore-resting early amphibians, but more speculative. It is also possible it hunted sea scorpions that were comfortable on both land and sea.[1]
- ^ Beznosov, Pavel A.; Clack, Jennifer A.; Lukševičs, Ervīns; Ruta, Marcello; Ahlberg, Per Erik (October 2019). "Morphology of the earliest reconstructable tetrapod Parmastega aelidae" (PDF). Nature. 574 (7779): 527–531. Bibcode:2019Natur.574..527B. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1636-y. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 31645719. S2CID 204848799.
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