Casineria is an extinct genus of tetrapod which lived about 340 million years ago in the Mississippian epoch. Its name, Casineria, is a latinization of Cheese Bay, the site near Edinburgh, where it was found. It lived in what was then a fairly dry environment in Scotland.

It is a transitional fossil noted for its mix of primitive (amphibian) and advanced (reptilian) characters, putting it at or very near the origin of the amniotes. The sole find is lacking key elements (most of the skull and the whole lower body is missing), making exact analysis difficult.

Description

Casineria was a small animal with a total length estimated to have been 15 centimeters. Its small size would have made it ideal for hunting the invertebrates of the carboniferous.

This earliest amniote had five fingers with claws on each hand, and marks the earliest clawed foot. Claws being a feature intimately bound to the formation of keratinous scales in reptiles, Casineria would in life in all likelihood bear scaly, reptilian type skin. In life, it would resemble a small lizard.