128-573: See below Temnospondyli (from Greek τέμνειν, temnein 'to cut' and σπόνδυλος, spondylos 'vertebra') or temnospondyls is a diverse ancient order of small to giant tetrapods —often considered primitive amphibians —that flourished worldwide during the Carboniferous , Permian and Triassic periods, with fossils being found on every continent. A few species continued into the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods, but all had gone extinct by
256-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
384-575: A bone common in stem tetrapods, is only found in some late Paleozoic taxa like certain edopoids and dvinosaurs . Most temnospondyls have an indentation at the back of the skull called otic notches. It has typically been inferred that this structure supported a typanum for hearing, although there is substantial variation among temnospondyls in the anatomy of this notch such that it may not have served this function in all temnospondyls, and some clades like plagiosaurids and brachyopids lack notches entirely. The palate of temnospondyls generally consists of
512-508: A close similarity to crocodiles, although they lacked the armor characteristic of the latter group. These temnospondyls included the largest-known batrachomorph, the over 5.5-meter-long Prionosuchus of Brazil. The stereospondyl record is almost exclusively confined to rhinesuchids . As temnospondyls continued to flourish and diversify in the Late Permian (260.4–251.0 Mya), a major group called Stereospondyli became more dependent on life in
640-416: A common and widespread component of semiaquatic ecosystems. Some temnospondyls, such as Cryobatrachus and Kryostega , even inhabited Antarctica , which was covered in temperate forests at the time. Triassic temnospondyls were often the dominant semiaquatic animals in their environments. Large assemblages of Late Triassic metoposaurids with hundreds of individuals preserved together have been found in
768-427: A constriction in the upper jaw. For hard-to-distinguish specimens, the protruding tooth is the most reliable feature to define the species ' family . Crocodiles have more webbing on the toes of the hind feet and can better tolerate saltwater due to specialized salt glands for filtering out salt, which are present, but non-functioning, in alligators. Another trait that separates crocodiles from other crocodilians
896-402: A counterpart to it), but Stereospondyli is still considered valid. Below is a simplified taxonomy of temnospondyls showing currently recognized groups: Class Amphibia In one of the earliest phylogenetic analyses of the group, Gardiner (1983) recognized five characteristics that made Temnospondyli a clade : a bone at the back of the skull, the parasphenoid , is connected to another bone on
1024-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
1152-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
1280-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
1408-501: A group called Ganocephala, which was characterized by plate-like skull bones, small limbs, fish-like scales and branchial arches. Unlike labyrinthodonts, they did not have parietal foramina , small holes in their skulls behind their eye sockets. Archegosaurus , Dendrerpeton , Eryops and Trimerorhachis were placed in this group and were considered to be the most primitive members of Reptilia. Their rhachitomous vertebrae, notochord and lack of occipital condyles (which attached
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#17328486231521536-399: A group which he characterized as having simple, spool-shaped vertebral centra. Temnospondyli included forms with the centra divided into pleurocentra and intercentra. All members of Stereospondyli had amphicoelous centra composed only of the intercentra. Cope objected to von Zittel's classification, considering the vertebrae of lepospondyls and stereospondyls indistinguishable because each had
1664-466: A particularly high diversity of dissorophoids. Middle Permian records of temnospondyls are relatively sparse, and some of these are debated as a result of the uncertain age and correlation of different deposits in North America (Chickasha, Flowerpot Formations), Niger (Moradi Formation), Brazil (Rio do Rasto Formation), and Russia (Mezen complex) and the subsequent controversy over Olson's Gap, but there
1792-508: A reference to the wide, flat heads of temnospondyls and other early tetrapods. During this time, paleontologists considered temnospondyls to be amphibians because they possessed three main features: gill arches in juvenile skeletons, indicating they were amphibious for at least the first part of their lives; ribs that do not connect at the underside of the rib cage; and deep pits in the skull that were interpreted as space for mucous glands . Several suborders of stegocephalians were recognized in
1920-472: A simple spool shape. He continued to use Ganocephala and Labyrinthodonta (which he alternatively referred to as Rhachitomi) to distinguish animals based on the absence or presence of occipital condyles. Temnospondyli became a commonly used name at the turn of the 20th century. Paleontologists included both embolomeres and rhachitomes in the group. Cope's Ganocephala and Labyrinthodonta fell out of use. In 1919, British paleontologist D. M. S. Watson proposed that
2048-485: A single tooth that he considered to belong to a reptile. Mastodonsaurus means "breast tooth lizard" after the nipple-like shape of the tip of the tooth. The naming of these first specimens was disputed. Leopold Fitzinger named the animal Batrachosaurus in 1837. In 1841, the English paleontologist Richard Owen referred to the genus as Labyrinthodon to describe its highly folded or labyrinthine teeth. Owen thought that
2176-417: A temnospondyl). Soft tissue, such as scales and external gills, were found in many well-preserved branchiosaur fossils from Germany. In the early 20th century, branchiosaurs would be recognized as larval forms of temnospondyls lacking many of the typical features that define the group, and is no longer recognized as a distinct group. Other animals that would later be classified as temnospondyls were placed in
2304-423: A variety of environmental conditions. Contrary to older assumptions, more recent studies have argued that the temnospondyls evolved from a terrestrial ancestor (although with aquatic eggs and larvae), and that it was the forms that later returned to water and an aquatic lifestyle which evolved a spine more rigid and stiffer than the terrestrial species. Very little is known of the soft tissue of temnospondyls because
2432-507: Is a cladogram from Ruta et al. (2003) placing Temnospondyli within crown Tetrapoda: Acanthostega [REDACTED] Ichthyostega [REDACTED] Tulerpeton [REDACTED] Colosteidae [REDACTED] Crassigyrinus [REDACTED] Whatcheeriidae [REDACTED] Baphetidae Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
2560-451: Is a cladogram showing the relationships of the major extant crocodile groups based on molecular studies, excluding separate extinct taxa: Caiman [REDACTED] Melanosuchus [REDACTED] Paleosuchus [REDACTED] Alligator [REDACTED] Crocodylus [REDACTED] Mecistops [REDACTED] Osteolaemus [REDACTED] Gavialis [REDACTED] Tomistoma [REDACTED] Below
2688-503: Is a reptiliomorph , the name Temnospondyli is synonymous with Batrachomorpha (a clade containing all organisms that are more closely related to modern amphibians than to mammals and reptiles). Rainer Schoch in 2013 defined the name Temnospondyli as applying to “[t]he least inclusive clade containing Edops craigi and Mastodonsaurus giganteus ”. Many temnospondyls are much larger than living amphibians, and superficially resemble crocodiles , which has led many taxa to be named with
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#17328486231522816-647: Is a compound of krokè ( ' pebbles ' ), and drilos/dreilos ( ' worm ' ), although drilos is only attested as a colloquial term for ' penis ' . It is ascribed to Herodotus , and supposedly describes the basking habits of the Egyptian crocodile. The form crocodrillus is attested in Medieval Latin . It is not clear whether this is a medieval corruption or derives from alternative Greco-Latin forms (late Greek corcodrillos and corcodrillion are attested). A (further) corrupted form cocodrille
2944-534: Is a general consensus that at least some of these records are Guadalupian in age. Records of rhinesuchids from the Eodicynodon and Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zones of South Africa are less controversial. Additional records are known from Brazil, China, Turkey, and the Isheevo complex of Russia. A mixture of taxa are represented, including stereospondylomorphs ( Konzhukovia ) and rhinesuchid stereospondyls, as well as some of
3072-1221: Is a more detailed cladogram of Crocodylidae, based on a 2021 study using paleogenomics that extracted DNA from the extinct Voay . Mecistops cataphractus West African slender-snouted crocodile Euthecodon † Brochuchus † Rimasuchus † Osteolaemus osborni Osborn's dwarf crocodile Osteolaemus tetraspis Dwarf crocodile Voay † Crocodylus anthropophagus † Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni † Crocodylus palaeindicus † Crocodylus Tirari Desert † Crocodylus johnstoni Freshwater crocodile Crocodylus novaeguineae New Guinea crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis Philippine crocodile Crocodylus porosus Saltwater crocodile Crocodylus siamensis Siamese crocodile Crocodylus palustris Mugger crocodile Crocodylus checchiai † Crocodylus falconensis † Crocodylus suchus West African crocodile Crocodylus niloticus Nile crocodile Crocodylus moreletii Morelet's crocodile Crocodylus rhombifer Cuban crocodile Crocodylus intermedius Orinoco crocodile Crocodylus acutus American crocodile Alternatively, some morphological studies have recovered Mecistops as
3200-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
3328-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
3456-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
3584-636: Is divided into several parts (intercentrum, paired pleurocentra, neural arch), although this occurs widely among other early tetrapods. Experts disagree over whether temnospondyls were ancestral to modern amphibians ( frogs , salamanders and caecilians ), or whether the whole group died out without leaving any descendants. Different hypotheses have placed modern amphibians as the descendants of temnospondyls, as descendants of another group of early tetrapods called lepospondyls , or even as descendants of both groups (with caecilians evolving from lepospondyls and frogs and salamanders evolving from temnospondyls). There
3712-558: Is found in Old French and was borrowed into Middle English as cocodril(le) . The Modern English form crocodile was adapted directly from the Classical Latin crocodīlus in the 16th century, replacing the earlier form. The use of -y- in the scientific name Crocodylus (and forms derived from it) is a corruption introduced by Laurenti (1768). Crocodylidae was named as a family by Georges Cuvier in 1807. It belongs to
3840-401: Is further disagreement about a temnospondyl origin of lissamphibians related to whether the modern groups arose from only one group ( dissorophoids ) or from two different groups (dissorophoids and stereospondyls ). The majority of studies place a group of temnospondyls called amphibamiforms as the closest relatives of modern amphibians. Similarities in teeth, skulls and hearing structures link
3968-595: Is highly variable, and complete caudal sequences are rare. Based on Eryops , more than 30 caudal positions were possible in some taxa. The pectoral girdle comprised an unpaired interclavicle, paired clavicles, paired cleithra, and paired scapulae / scapulocoracoids as with most other early tetrapods. These elements differ widely in variation across temnospondyls, with such variation attributed to different lifestyles. The interclavicle and clavicles tend to be more lightly built in terrestrial taxa, with little to no ornamentation. In contrast, these elements are massively ossified in
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4096-491: Is no evidence for a buccal pump mechanism for respiration. Temnospondyls often have extensive coverings of teeth on their palates, as well as in their jaws, in contrast to modern amphibians. Some of these teeth are so large that they are referred to as tusks or fangs. Although most temnospondyls have monocuspid teeth, the presence of bicuspid and/or pedicellate teeth in some dissorophoids has been cited as evidence for close relatedness to lissamphibians. In some temnospondyls, such as
4224-468: Is not unique to one group of temnospondyls. Moreover, the distinction between rhachitomous and stereospondylous vertebrae is not entirely clear. Some temnospondyls have rhachitomous , semirhachitomous and sterospondylous vertebrae at different points in the same vertebral column. Other taxa have intermediate morphologies that do not fit into any category. Rachitomi is no longer recognized as an exclusive group (i.e. it includes Stereospondyli rather than being
4352-527: Is now placed as an early tetrapod outside Temnospondyli, and Rhombopholis is now considered a prolacertiform reptile. Later in the 19th century, temnospondyls were classified as various members of Stegocephalia , a name coined by the American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in 1868. Cope placed stegocephalians in the class Batrachia, the name then used for Amphibia . Stegocephalia means "roof-headed" in Greek ,
4480-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
4608-875: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Crocodile Crocodiles ( family Crocodylidae ) or true crocodiles are large, semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout
4736-471: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
4864-708: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
4992-406: Is that the upper and lower jaws of the crocodiles are the same width, and the teeth in the lower jaw fall along the edge or outside the upper jaw when the mouth is closed; therefore, all teeth are visible, unlike an alligator, which possesses in the upper jaw small depressions into which the lower teeth fit. Also, when the crocodile's mouth is closed, the large fourth tooth in the lower jaw fits into
5120-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
5248-726: Is their much higher levels of aggression . Crocodile size , morphology , behaviour and ecology differ somewhat among species . However, they have many similarities in these areas as well. All crocodiles are semiaquatic and tend to congregate in freshwater habitats such as rivers , lakes , wetlands and sometimes in brackish water and saltwater . They are carnivorous animals, feeding mostly on vertebrates such as fish , reptiles , birds and mammals , and sometimes on invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans , depending on species and age. All crocodiles are tropical species that, unlike alligators, are very sensitive to cold . They separated from other crocodilians during
Temnospondyli - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-528: Is thought to have stiffened the vertebral column in association with the relative terrestriality of this clade. Recent histological work has demonstrated that most of this hyperelongation is formed by the osteoderm capping the spine, and thus the sail of Platyhystrix is dissimilar to that of pelycosaurs in which it is entirely formed by the spine. The majority of temnospondyls have presacral counts between 23 and 27, with reduction observed in some amphibamiforms and elongation observed in many dvinosaurs. Caudal length
5504-462: Is usually covered in pits and ridges to form a honeycomb-like pattern. One of the most recent hypotheses for the function of the dermal ornamentation is that it may have supported blood vessels, which could transfer carbon dioxide to the bones to neutralize acidic build up in the blood (early semiaquatic tetrapods would have had difficulty expelling carbon dioxide from their bodies while on land, and these dermal bones may have been an early solution to
5632-542: The Carnian stage of the Late Triassic (237.0–227.0 Mya), capitosauroids were joined by the superficially very similar Metoposauridae . Metoposaurids are distinguished from capitosauroids by the positioning of their eye sockets near the front of their skulls. Another group of stereospondyls, the plagiosaurs , had wide heads and gills , and adapted to life at the bottom of lakes and rivers. By this time, temnospondyls had become
5760-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
5888-461: The Eocene epoch, about 55 million years ago. Many species are at the risk of extinction , some being classified as critically endangered . The word crocodile comes from Ancient Greek κροκόδιλος (krokódilos) 'lizard', used in the phrase ho krokódilos tou potamoú , ' the lizard of the ( Nile ) river ' . There are several variant Greek forms of the word attested, including
6016-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
6144-460: The Late Cretaceous . During about 210 million years of evolutionary history, they adapted to a wide range of habitats, including freshwater, terrestrial, and even coastal marine environments. Their life history is well understood, with fossils known from the larval stage, metamorphosis and maturity. Most temnospondyls were semiaquatic , although some were almost fully terrestrial, returning to
6272-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
6400-466: The 20th and 21st centuries, including the first occurrences from historically undersampled regions such as Antarctica, Lesotho, Japan, Namibia, New Zealand, Niger, and Türkiye. Temnospondyls first appeared in the Middle Mississippean ( Viséan ) around 330 million years ago (Mya) where the earliest appearances are Balanerpeton from Scotland and an indeterminate temnospondyl from Germany. During
6528-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
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#17328486231526656-461: The Carboniferous, all of the non-stereospondylomorph clades appeared, including dendrerpetids , edopoids , eryopoids , the various dissorophoid subclades, dvinosaurs and zatracheids. Stereospondylomorphs and stereospondyls first appeared in the early Permian, although the former may have appeared earlier and merely be undocumented at present. The vast majority of the Carboniferous records come from
6784-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
6912-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
7040-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
7168-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
7296-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
7424-526: The Triassic. Common ichnogenera include Batrachichnus and Limnopus . Temnospondyli was named by the German paleontologist Karl Alfred von Zittel in his second edition of Handbuch der Palaeontologie , published in 1888. However, temnospondyl remains have been known since the early part of the 19th century. The earliest described temnospondyl was Mastodonsaurus , named by Georg Friedrich Jaeger in 1828 from
7552-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
7680-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
7808-420: The animals grew, the scales on the undersides of their bodies developed into large, wide ventral plates. The plates overlap each other in a way that allows a wide range of flexibility. Later semiaquatic temnospondyls, such as trematosaurs and capitosaurs , have no evidence of scales. They may have lost scales to make movement easier under water or to allow cutaneous respiration , the absorption of oxygen through
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#17328486231527936-487: The aquatic stereospondyls and are well ornamented in the same fashion as the skull. The cleithrum and scapulocoracoid is more developed in terrestrial taxa, and the coracoid tends not to ossify in aquatic forms such that there is only a much shorter scapula present. The pelvis comprises the ilium, ischium and pubis, the last of which does not always ossify in aquatic forms. The sutural contacts between elements may also be visible, even when all three ossify. The forelimb comprised
8064-415: The classification of modern amphibians, they are either included in the crown group Tetrapoda or the stem of Tetrapoda. Crown-group tetrapods are descendants of the most recent common ancestor of all living tetrapods and stem tetrapods are forms that are outside the crown group. Modern amphibians have recently been suggested as descendants of temnospondyls, which would place them within crown Tetrapoda. Below
8192-413: The conditions necessary to preserve such material are uncommon. The most extensive records come from fine-grained deposits in the Carboniferous and Permian of Germany; the small-bodied and aquatic dissorophoids and the larger stereospondylomorphs are frequently preserved with outlines of soft tissue around the skeleton. Typically preserved features include the outline of the body, external gills, and parts of
8320-449: The connections between vertebrae. The strong backbone and strong limbs of many rhachitomous temnospondyls allowed them to be partially, and in some cases fully, terrestrial. In stereospondylous vertebrae, the pleurocentra have been greatly reduced or lost entirely, with the intercentra enlarged as the main body of the vertebrae. Early concepts of stereospondyl required the pleurocentra to be entirely absent, but newer concepts only require that
8448-413: The contact between the postparietal and exoccipital at the back of the skull, small projections ( uncinate processes ) on the ribs , and a pelvic girdle with each side having a single iliac blade . These shared derived characteristics are called synapomorphies . Temnospondyls are placed as basal tetrapods in phylogenetic analyses, with their exact positioning varying between studies. Depending on
8576-539: The disuse of terms like Labyrinthodontia and Stegocephalia continues. Temnospondyls continue to be heavily involved in the debate over lissamphibian origins. As with evolutionary biology in general, computer-assisted phylogenetic methods have greatly facilitated phylogenetic inference of the relationships of both Temnospondyli at large and specific sub-groups. Other quantitative analyses have addressed morphometrics, biomechanics, Temnospondyls were also documented from an increasingly broad geographic and stratigraphic range in
8704-399: The dvinosaur Erpetosaurus , the capitosaur Mastodonsaurus and the trematosaur Microposaurus , tusks in the lower jaw pierce the palate and emerge through openings in the top of the skull. Temnospondyls' vertebrae are divided into several segments. In living tetrapods, the main body of the vertebra is a single piece of bone called the centrum , but in temnospondyls, this region
8832-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
8960-526: The early 19th century, and were initially thought to be reptiles . They were described at various times as batrachians , stegocephalians and labyrinthodonts , although these names are now rarely used. Animals now grouped in Temnospondyli were spread out among several amphibian groups until the early 20th century, when they were found to belong to a distinct taxon based on the structure of their vertebrae. Temnospondyli means "cut vertebrae", as each vertebra
9088-602: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
9216-517: The evolutionary history of these large amphibians could be seen through changes in their vertebrae. Embolomerous forms in the Carboniferous graded into rhachitomous forms in the Permian, and finally into stereospondyls in the Triassic. More importantly, Watson began using the term Labyrinthodontia to refer to these groups. The name Temnospondyli was rarely used in the decades that followed. Swedish paleontologist Gunnar Säve-Söderbergh removed embolomeres from
9344-460: The exception of the modern crab-eating frog . Another group, the capitosauroids , included medium-sized and large animals 2.3 to 4 m (7.5 to 13.1 ft) in length, with large and flat skulls that could be over a meter long in the largest forms such as Mastodonsaurus . These animals spent most or all their lives in water as aquatic predators, catching their prey by a sudden opening of the upper jaw and sucking in fish or other small animals. In
9472-454: The eye or stomach. An amphibamiform specimen from the Mazon Creek locality was described as having toepad-like features. The holotype specimen of Arenaerpeton supinatus from the Triassic of New South Wales, Australia, displays extensive soft tissue, hinting at the girth of the animal in life. Trace fossils attributed to temnospondyls are fairly common, especially from the Carboniferous through
9600-474: The first-known complete skull of a temnospondyl. Because Mastodonsaurus was named first, it has precedence over the other names as a senior subjective synonym . Mastodonsaurus and other similar animals were referred to as labyrinthodonts , named like Labyrinthodon for teeth that were highly folded in cross section. Owen's " Labyrinthodon Jaegeri " was later found at Guy's Cliffe , England by paleontologist William Buckland . Other specimens were found in
9728-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
9856-448: The genus. Although the two genera have similarly sized conical teeth, Phytosaurus was later found to be a crocodile-like reptile. Additional material, including skulls, firmly placed Labyrinthodon as an amphibian. Jaeger also named Salamandroides giganteus in 1828, basing it on partial occiput, or back portion of the skull. In 1833, he described a complete skull of S. giganteus that had the same teeth as his Mastodonsaurus , making it
9984-454: The gharial are similar in appearance, they belong to separate biological families . The gharial, with its narrow snout , is easier to distinguish, while morphological differences are more difficult to spot in crocodiles and alligators. The most obvious external differences are visible in the head, with crocodiles having narrower and longer heads, with a more V-shaped than a U-shaped snout compared to alligators and caimans. Another obvious trait
10112-495: The group, narrowing its scope to rhachitomes and stereospondyls. His classification of labyrinthodonts was based heavily on characteristics of the skull rather than the vertebrae. The American paleontologist Alfred Romer brought the name Temnospondyli back into use in the later 20th century. Säve-Söderbergh used the name Labyrinthodontia in a strict sense ( sensu stricto ) to refer to Rhachitomi and Stereospondyli, excluding Embolomeri. Romer agreed with this classification, but used
10240-474: The head to the neck) were features that were also shared with fishes. Thus, they were considered a link between early fishes and more advanced forms such as stegocephalians. Another group was called Microsauria by Cope in 1868. He classified Microsauria as a subgroup of Labyrinthodontia, placing many small, amphibian-like animals within it. Among them was Dendrerpeton , once placed in Ganocephala. Dendrerpeton
10368-472: The import of this disparity is also unclear. Many temnospondyls also have canal-like grooves in their skulls called sensory sulci , the presence of which is used to infer an aquatically inclined lifestyle. The sulci, which usually run around the nostrils and eye sockets, are part of a lateral line system used to detect vibrations in water in modern fish and certain modern amphibians. Many taxa, especially those inferred to have been terrestrial, have an opening at
10496-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
10624-481: The intercentra made up the entire body of the vertebrae. Embolerimi had intercentra and pleurocentra that were of equal size. Embolomeres are now identified as a separate group of reptiliomorphs or stem-group tetrapods , with no particular affinities to temnospondyls. In 1888, von Zittel divided stegocephalians among three taxa: Lepospondyli, Temnospondyli and Stereospondyli . He placed microsaurs in Lepospondyli,
10752-578: The intercentrum has become greatly enlarged. This weaker type of backbone indicates that stereospondylous temnospondyls spent more time in water. Additional types that are less common are the plagiosaurid-type in which there is a single enlarged centrum of uncertain homology; and the tupilakosaurid-type vertebrae (diplospondyly) in which the pleurocentra and intercentra are the same size and form discs; this occurs in tupilakosaurid dvinosaurs but also at least some brachyopids and several other non-temnospondyls. The neural spines tend to be of similar height throughout
10880-677: The larger superfamily Crocodyloidea , which also includes additional extinct crocodile relatives. These all belong to the order Crocodilia , which also includes alligators and gharials . Crocodylidae is cladistically defined as a crown group composed of the last common ancestor of the Nile crocodile ( Crocodylus niloticus ), the Dwarf crocodile ( Osteolaemus tetraspis ), and all of its descendants. It contains two subfamilies : Crocodylinae and Osteolaeminae . Crocodylinae contains 13-14 living species, as well as 6 extinct species. Osteolaeminae
11008-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
11136-710: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. Animals now regarded as temnospondyls were primarily labyrinthodonts, but some were classified in the Branchiosauria . Branchiosaurs were small-bodied and had simple conical teeth, while labyrinthodonts were larger and had complex, folded dentin and enamel in their teeth. Branchiosauria included only a few forms, such as Branchiosaurus from Europe and Amphibamus from North America, that had poorly developed bones, external gills, and no ribs. Some skeletons of Amphibamus were later found with long ribs, prompting its reassignment to Microsauria (although more detailed studies found it to be
11264-514: The later form krokódeilos ( κροκόδειλος ) found cited in many English reference works. In the Koine Greek of Roman times, krokodilos and krokodeilos would have been pronounced identically, and either or both may be the source of the Latinized form crocodīlus used by the ancient Romans. It has been suggested, but it is not certain that the word crocodilos or crocodeilos
11392-426: The latest occurrences of dissorophoids ( Anakamacops , Kamacops ). During the late Permian , increasing aridity and the diversification of reptiles contributed to a decline in terrestrial temnospondyls, but semiaquatic and fully aquatic stereospondylomorph temnospondyls continued to flourish, including the large Melosaurus of Eastern Europe. Other temnospondyls, such as archegosaurids , developed long snouts and
11520-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
11648-473: The midline near the tip of the snout called the internarial fenestra / fontanelle; this may have housed a mucous gland used in prey capture. In zatracheids , this opening is greatly enlarged for an unknown purpose. Homologues of most of the bones of temnospondyls are also seen in other early tetrapods, aside from a few bones in the skull, such as interfrontals , internasals and interparietals , that have developed in some temnospondyl taxa. The intertemporal,
11776-713: The midwestern United States, such as the Linton, Five Points and Mazon Creek lagerstätte , and the south-central United States where classic redbed formations are found; and from western Europe, particularly the Saar-Nahe Basin in Germany and Nýřany in the Czech Republic. The early Permian record of temnospondyls is also concentrated in these regions. Most of the clades from the Late Carboniferous continued to be successful, with
11904-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
12032-552: The name Mastodonsaurus "ought not to be retained, because it recalls unavoidably the idea of the mammalian genus Mastodon , or else a mammilloid form of the tooth... and because the second element of the word, saurus , indicates a false affinity, the remains belonging, not to the Saurian, but to the Batrachian order of Reptiles." Owen recognized that the animal was not a " saurian " reptile, yet he also referred Jaeger's Phytosaurus to
12160-412: The name Temnospondyli to avoid confusion with Labyrinthodontia in its wider sense ( sensu lato ). Unlike modern temnospondyl classification, however, Romer included the primitive Ichthyostegalia in the group. More recent study of temnospondyls has largely focused on their paleobiology and resolving their internal relationships. With a few exceptions, the monophyly of Temnospondyli is not questioned, and
12288-402: The notion that reptiles evolved from a sequential progression from early amphibians (what he called "metamorphosed fishes"). In addition to Mastodonsaurus , some of the earliest-named genera included Metopias and Rhombopholis in 1842, Zygosaurus in 1848, Trematosaurus in 1849, Baphetes and Dendrerpeton in 1853, Capitosaurus in 1858, and Dasyceps in 1859. Baphetes
12416-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
12544-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
12672-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
12800-571: The order in which it belonged. The labyrinthodontian suborders Microsauria and Branchiosauria, both of which contain temnospondyls, were distinct from Labyrinthodonta. Within Labyrinthodonta were the groups Rhachitomi, Labyrinthodonti and Embolerimi . Members of Rhachitomi, such as Archegosaurus and Eryops , had rhachitomous vertebrae with enlarged intercentra that displaced the pleurocentra. Labyrinthodonti, such as Mastodonsaurus , Trematosaurus and Micropholis , had lost their pleurocentra, and
12928-727: The paucity of complete manuses casts doubt on the sweeping characterization of a four-fingered manus as the predominant or plesiomorphic condition. At least in Metoposauridae , there are both taxa with four fingers and taxa with five. The hindlimb comprised the typical tibia, fibula, femur and pes. Relative development is as with the forelimb. All temnospondyls with a known pes have five digits. Unlike modern amphibians, many temnospondyls are covered in small, closely packed scales. The undersides of most temnospondyls are covered in rows of large ventral plates. During early stages of development, they first have only small, rounded scales. Fossils show, as
13056-447: The presacral region of the trunk, but some temnospondyls exhibit increasing height towards the mid-trunk, followed by a decrease in height to produce a more hump-backed contour. The most extreme is observed in the dissorophid Platyhystrix , which has greatly elongated neural spines that form a large sail on its back. The function of this sail, like that of the contemporaneous sphenacodontids and edaphosaurids , remains enigmatic, but it
13184-445: The problem). However, there are many other possible hypotheses for the purpose of the ornamentation (e.g., increasing surface area for better adhesion of the skin to the skull), and the function(s) remains largely unresolved due to the absence of this feature in lissamphibians. Some temnospondyls also exhibit raised tubercles or pustules instead of pits and grooves (e.g., the dissorophoid Micropholis , plagiosaurine plagiosaurids ), and
13312-636: The red sandstone of Warwickshire . As more fossils were uncovered in England, Owen depicted these labyrinthodonts as the "highest" form of batrachian and compared them to crocodiles, which he considered the highest form of reptiles. He also noted the large labyrinthodonts of the Keuper (a unit of rocks that dates to the Late Triassic ) were younger than more advanced reptiles in the Magnesian and Zechstein , which are Late Permian in age. Owen used these fossils to counter
13440-484: The same bones found in other early tetrapods. Among the most distinguishing features of temnospondyls are the interpterygoid vacuities, two large holes in the back of the palate . Recent studies have suggested that these large openings provided additional attachment sites for musculature and that many temnospondyls were capable of retracting their eyeballs through the vacuities, which is observed in modern frogs and salamanders that also have these large palatal openings; there
13568-449: The skin. Several groups of temnospondyls have large bony plates ( osteoderms ) on their backs. One temnospondyl, Peltobatrachus , has armour-like plating that covers both its back and underside. The rhytidosteid Laidleria also has extensive plating on its back. Most members of the family Dissorophidae also have armor, although it only covers the midline of the back with one or two narrow rows of plates that tightly articulated with
13696-486: The southwestern United States, Morocco, India, and western Europe. They have often been interpreted as mass death events caused by droughts in floodplain environments. Recent studies show these dense assemblages were instead probably the result of currents transporting and accumulating dead individuals in certain areas. Temnospondyls reached a peak diversity during the Early Triassic, and progressively declined throughout
13824-497: The spine, as they would have limited flexibility and may have been connected by strong ligaments. A carapace of osteoderms is also seen in plagiosaurids , the only primarily aquatic clade with such extensive ossifications. Plagiosaurids may have inherited their armor from a terrestrial ancestor, as both Peltobatrachus and Laidleria have been considered close relatives of the group. Alternatively, these osteoderms may have served as mineral reservoirs to allow plagiosaurids to respond to
13952-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
14080-412: The structure of their vertebrae. Early forms, with complex vertebrae consisting of a number of separate elements, were placed in the suborder Rachitomi, and large Triassic aquatic forms with simpler vertebrae were placed in the suborder Stereospondyli. With the recent growth of phylogenetics , this classification is no longer viable. The basic rhachitomous condition is found in many primitive tetrapods, and
14208-623: The subsequent Middle and Late Triassic, with only members of the Brachyopoidea and Trematosauroidea surviving into the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. Among brachyopoids, the brachyopids Gobiops and Sinobrachyops are known from Middle and late Jurassic deposits across Asia and the chigutisaurid Siderops is known from the Early Jurassic of Australia. The most recent known temnospondyl
14336-650: The suffix - suchus . The largest taxa, which were predominantly the Mesozoic stereospondyls, had skulls exceeding one meter in length, and the entire animal would have been several meters in length (for reference, the largest living amphibian, Andrias , is about 1.8 meters in body length). Others are smaller and resemble salamanders, in particularly the amphibamiform and micromelerpetid dissorophoids. Skulls are generally parabolic to triangular in shape when viewed from above, and they were particularly flattened in semiaquatic to aquatic taxa, with dorsally facing orbits. The skull
14464-515: The tropics in Africa , Asia , the Americas and Australia . The term “crocodile” is sometimes used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia , which includes the alligators and caimans (both members of the family Alligatoridae ), the gharial and false gharial (both members of the family Gavialidae ) as well as other, extinct, taxa. Although crocodiles, alligators, and
14592-425: The two groups. Whether temnospondyls are considered part of the tetrapod crown or stem thus depends on their inferred relationship to lissamphibians. In 2000, Adam Yates and Anne Warren defined the name Temnospondyli as applying to the clade encompassing all organisms that are more closely related to Eryops than to the “ microsaur ” Pantylus . By this definition, if lissamphibians are temnospondyls and Pantylus
14720-420: The typical radius, ulna, humerus and manus. These bones are typically more developed with greater surface area for muscle attachment in taxa inferred to have been terrestrial. Many dissorophoids have long and slender limbs. Historically it has been thought that all temnospondyls had only four fingers, but this has been shown not to be true in at least a few stereospondyls ( Metoposaurus , Paracyclotosaurus ), and
14848-430: The underside of the skull, the pterygoid ; large openings called interpterygoid vacuities are present between the pterygoids; the stapes (a bone involved in hearing) is connected to the parasphenoid and projects upward; the cleithrum , a bone in the pectoral girdle , is thin; and part of the vertebra called the interdorsal attaches to the neural arch . Additional features were given by Godfrey et al. (1987), including
14976-403: The vertebrae, and osteoderms are also known from a few trematopids. Other temnospondyls, such as Eryops , have been found with small, disc-like bony scutes that were in life probably embedded in the skin. All of these temnospondyls were adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle. Armor may have offered protection from predators in the case of Peltobatrachus . The scutes may have provided stability for
15104-415: The water only to breed. These temnospondyls were some of the first vertebrates fully adapted to life on land. Although temnospondyls are amphibians, many had characteristics such as scales and large armour-like bony plates (osteoderms) that generally distinguish them from the modern soft-bodied lissamphibians ( frogs and toads , newts , salamanders and caecilians ). Temnospondyls have been known since
15232-498: The water. The vertebrae became weak, the limbs small, and the skull large and flat, with the eyes facing upwards. During the Triassic period, these animals dominated the freshwater ecosystems, evolving in a range of both small and large forms. During the Early Triassic (251.0–245.0 Mya) one group of successful long-snouted fish-eaters, the trematosauroids , even adapted to a life in the sea, the only known batrachomorphs to do so with
15360-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
15488-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
15616-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
15744-431: Was divided into a pleurocentrum and intercentrum . Two primary types of vertebrae are recognized in temnospondyls: stereospondylous and rhachitomous vertebrae. In rhachitomous vertebrae, the intercentra are large and wedge-shaped, and the pleurocentra are relatively small blocks that fit between them. Both elements support a spine-like neural arch, and well-developed interlocking projections called zygapophyses strengthen
15872-464: Was later placed as a labyrinthodont with other temnospondyls, but confusion existed for many years over the classification of small amphibians. By the end of the 19th century, most of what are today regarded as temnospondyls were placed in the suborder Labyrinthodonta. The American paleontologist Ermine Cowles Case called it Labyrinthodonta vera or "true labyrinthodonts". The names Stegocephalia and Labyrinthodontia were used interchangeably to refer to
16000-569: Was named by Christopher Brochu in 2003 as a subfamily of Crocodylidae separate from Crocodylinae, and contains the two extant genera Osteolaemus and Mecistops , along with several extinct genera. The number of extant species within Osteolaeminae is currently in question. Recent molecular studies using DNA sequencing have shown crocodiles to be more closely related to the gavialids rather than to alligators , contrary to prior theories based on morphological studies alone. Below
16128-486: Was the giant chigutisaurid Koolasuchus , known from the Early Cretaceous ( Aptian ) of Australia . It is thought to have survived in rift valleys that were too cold in the winter for crocodylomorphs that normally would have competed with them. Koolasuchus was one of the largest of the brachyopoids, with an estimated weight of 500 kg (1,100 lb). Originally, temnospondyls were classified according to
16256-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
16384-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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