Estemmenosuchus

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iEstemmenosuchus
Fossil range: Wordian
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Superclass: Tetrapoda
(unranked) Amniota
Class: Synapsida
Order: Therapsida
Suborder: Dinocephalia
Family: Estemmenosuchidae
Genus: Estemmenosuchus
Tchudinov, 1960
Species

Estemmenosuchus uralensis
Estemmenosuchus mirabilis
Estemmenosuchus
Type Therapsid:Dinocephalian
Length 10 ft (3 m) long
Movement quadruped
Age 270 - 265 mya
Diet Horsetails, ferns, perhaps small animals
Environment Subtropical lakeside forest
Distribution Russia

Estemmenosuchus is a genus of large, early herbivorous therapsid that lived during the middle part of the Middle Permian period. It was the largest animal of its day, and is characterised by distinctive horns-like structures, probably for intra-specific display. Two species of Estemmenosuchus are known, both from the Perm (or Cis-Urals) region of Russia.

[edit] Description

Estemmenosuchus was a large, clumsy-looking animal, the size of an adult bull, with a sprawling posture. The skull is high and massive, and possesses several sets of large horns, looking a little like the antlers of a moose, growing upwards and outwards from the sides and top of the head.

The skull superficially resembles that of Styracocephalus, but the "horns" are formed from different bones; in Estemmenosuchus the horns are located on the frontals and directed upwards, whereas in Styracocephalus the horns are formed by the tabular and extend to the rear.

Two species of Estemmenosuchus are known; they differ in size, shape of the skull, and shape of the horns.

[edit] References

  • Chudinov, P. K. 1965, "New Facts about the Fauna of the Upper Permian of the USSR", Journal of Geology, 73:117-30
  • Gillian M. King, "Anomodontia" Part 17 C, Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology, Gutsav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart and New York, 1988
  • Olsen, E. C., 1962, Late Permian terrestrial vertebrates, USA and USSR Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series, 52: 1–224.

[edit] Link

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