Colosteidae

Colosteidae; Temporal range:
	Life restoration and size comparation of three members of Colosteidae
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Sarcopterygii
Clade:	Tetrapodomorpha
Clade:	Stegocephali
Family:	†Colosteidae; Cope, 1875
Type genus
	†Colosteus; Cope, 1871
Genera
	†Colosteus; †Deltaherpeton; †Greererpeton; †Pholidogaster;

Colosteidae is a family of stegocephalians (stem-group tetrapods) that lived in the Carboniferous period.^[1] They possessed a variety of characteristics from different tetrapod or stem-tetrapod groups, which made them historically difficult to classify. They are now considered to be part of a lineage intermediate between the earliest Devonian terrestrial vertebrates (such as Ichthyostega), and the different groups ancestral to all modern tetrapods, such as temnospondyls (probably ancestral to modern amphibians) and reptiliomorphs (ancestral to amniotes such as mammals, reptiles, and birds).