479 



These were especially abundant in South Africa (Karroo beds 1 ), but 

 they have been found also in Europe. The rapid and diverse 

 deployment of the early reptiles in a period of general life-impover- 

 ishment is not a little remarkable, but as the reptiles were air 



I ii; 408. Paktohatteria longicaitdata, from t f he lower Permian of Germany, 

 about ,' 4 natural size. (Restoration by J. H. McGregor.) 



breathers, the key to their rise may lie in a more oxygenated atmos- 

 phere, a point to which we shall return. 



The Permian of Texas and Oklahoma affords the richest Per- 

 mian vertebrate fauna now known. In contrast with the verte- 



Fig. 409. Stcreoslcrnum tumidum, from Brazil, about % natural size. (Restora- 

 tion by McGlCgOT.) 



brate fauna of the Pennsylvanian system, this fauna is so unlike 

 the Permian faunas of other continents as to imply that land 

 animals did not migrate between North America and other conti- 

 nents. This isolation seems to have lasted from the later part of the 

 preceding period well into the Triassic. 



The Permian record of terrestrial invertebrates is poor. 



1 The Karroo beds, so wonderfully rich in significant vertebrate remains, are 

 rr^inlrd as IVrmiun in part, and Triassic in part. Broom, Geol. of Cape Colony, 

 1905, pp. 228-249. 



