Lystrosaurus is an extinctgenus of dicynodonttherapsid that lived during the Late Permian and Early Triassicperiods, around 250 million years ago in what is now Antarctica, India and South Africa. At present 4 to 6 species are recognized, although from the 1930s to 1970s the number of species was thought to be much higher. Lystrosaurus had only two teeth, as with all other dicynodonts, as well as a pair of tusk-like canines. Lystrosaurus is thought to have had a horny beak that was used for biting off pieces of vegetation. Lystrosaurus was a heavily-built, herbivorous animal, approximately the size of a pig. The structure of its shoulders and hip joints suggest that Lystrosaurus moved with a semi-sprawling gait. Lystrosaurus was by far the most common terrestrial vertebrate of the Early Triassic, accounting for as many as 95% of the total individuals in some fossil beds. It has often been suggested that it had anatomical features that enabled it to adapt better than most animals to the atmospheric conditions that were created by the Permian–Triassic extinctionevent and which persisted through the Early Triassic — low concentrations of oxygen and high concentrations of carbon dioxide. However recent research suggests that these features were no more pronounced in Lystrosaurus than in genera that perished in the extinction or genera that survived but were much less abundant than Lystrosaurus. (Read more...)
... that Irritator is only known from a skull that was badly obscured by plaster which was added by the commercial fossil-collecting fossil-poachers who illegally sold it in hopes of making the fossil look more complete and valuable?
... that rhynchosaurs had unique teeth that were modified into broad tooth plates?
... that a trackway produced by an unknown crocodyliform that measured approximately 12 meters in length was uncovered in the Galve region of Spain?
... that Loxommatids are possibly the first tetrapodomorph group to actually spend substantial time on land.?
... that Zuniceratops was discovered by 8 year old Christopher James Wolfe, son of paleontologist Douglas G. Wolfe?
"When out fossil hunting, it is very easy to forget that rather than telling you how the creatures lived, the remains you find indicate only where they became fossilized."
—Co-author with American science writer Roger Amos Lewin (1946), Origins: What New Discoveries Reveal about the Emergence of our Species and its Possible Future (1977), 96.
A hybodont spine from Morocco. In hybodonts, such spines were mounted at the leading edges of the dorsal and pectoral fins. This spine in particular is a dorsal spine.
Hybodontiformes are an order of extinctsharks, characterized by possessing 1-2 pairs of hooked protrusions on their heads. Hybodontiformes first appeared in the Lower Triassic, some 320–290 million years ago, but blossomed during the Mesozoicera. They did not survive past the end of the Cretaceousperiod, which ended some 65 million years ago. Hybodont sharks were originally described in the early 19th century from fossil teeth. Complete or partial skeletons of several hybodont genera have been found, although most of what is known about these sharks is based upon the study of their isolated teeth, fins, and cephalic spines.
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