Parmastega

Parmastega
Temporal range: Late Devonian,
Artist's reconstruction of P. aelidae
Scientific classification
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 insight on.

One remaining mystery is what exactly it hunted. There were large invertebrates on land, but they were not necessarily common. It is remotely 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.