Today's photo is of the famous sail-backed pelycosaur Edaphosaurus from the Permian red beds of Texas. As if its sail wasn't enough to puzzle paleontologists, the fact that the neural spines bear "cross bars" further adds to the mystery (I know of no other animal that has exhibited such a feature). I picked out this one, though, because today I'm off to the AMNH to meet up with fellow paleo-blogger Amanda (the "Self-Designed Student"), and will have plenty of photos to share when I return this afternoon.
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A mount of Dimetrodon at the AMNH. From the Bulletin of the AMNH.
The predatory pelycosaur Dimetrodon has always been a favorite of mine. Though not a dinosaur it has an appearance as bizarre as any dinosaur you care to name, and the function of the huge sail on its back is remains an enigma.…
The skeleton of Inostrancevia, a Permian synapsid from modern-day Russia. From the American Museum Journal.
The science of paleontology has long been concerned with searching out the origins of modern groups of animals, but at the turn of the 20th century there were frustratingly few…
I love flipping through old paleontology textbooks. Many times the text and images inside them have been reproduced from other sources or bear a close resemblance to similar titles published at about the same time, but every now and then I find something really unusual. Such was the case while I…
Last week I spent some time writing about Dimetrodon and the various functions paleontologists ascribed to its sail (from a literal sail to a sign of coming extinction). It can be easy to forget that no two sails were exactly alike, though, and paleo-artist Michael Skrepnick (see my interview with…
Excellent photo of a very bizarre pelycosaur, Brian!