Stereospondylomorpha

Stereospondylomorpha is a clade of temnospondyls. It includes the superfamily Archegosauroidea and the more diverse group Stereospondyli.^[1][2] Stereospondylomorpha was first proposed by Yates and Warren (2000), who found Archegosauroidea and Stereospondyli to be sister taxa in their phylogenetic analysis. A similar clade is Archegosauriformes, named by Schoch and Milner (2000), which includes Stereospondyli and some Permian temnospondyls that are similar in appearance to stereospondyls, including the archegosauroids.^[3] However, according to Schoch and Milner's phylogeny, Archegosauroidea is a paraphyletic group of taxa that are successively basal to Stereospondyli, rather than a monophyletic sister taxon.^[4]

Stereospondylomorphs Temporal range: 301–120 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Life restoration of Prionosuchus plummeri
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Tetrapoda
Order:	†Temnospondyli
Clade:	†Limnarchia
Clade:	†Stereospondylomorpha Yates and Warren, 2000
Clades
†Archegosauroidea †Stereospondyli

Chinlestegophis, a putative Triassic stereospondyl considered to be related to metoposauroids such as Rileymillerus, has been noted to share many features with caecilians, a living group of legless burrowing amphibians. If Chinlestegophis is indeed both an advanced stereospondyl and a relative of caecilians, this means that stereospondylomorphs (in the form of caecilians) survived to the present day.^[5]