Petrolacosaurus
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Extinct (fossil)
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| Petrolacosaurus kansensis |
Petrolacosaurus was a small, 40 centimeter long, diapsid reptile, one of the earliest known. It lived during the late Carboniferous period. The prehistoric reptile's diet may have consisted mainly of small insects. It lived along side several species of giant arthropods, like giant Mesothelae spiders, and Meganeura, a giant dragonfly, as well as anthracosaur amphibians like Proterogyrinus. Petrolacosaurus had distinctive canine-like secondary-sized teeth, a trait normally limited to therapsids and later mammals.
[edit] In popular culture
Petrolacosaurus was featured in the BBC television show Walking with Monsters. As well as claiming that it was the ancestral synaspid, he program states that its heart was the template for our own, even though the anatomy of Petrolacosaurus's organs and other soft tissue is completely unknown.
However, because it was a primitive diaspid, it was not the common ancestor of either Dimetrodon, or Edaphosaurus. Both reptiles and Synapsids had a common ancestor. The ancestor of Dimetrodon was probably Haptodus, a primitive synapsid from 300 million years ago to 280 million years ago. Petrolacosaurus was a typical, albeit primitive, diapsid, having two openings ("fenestrae") on each side of its skull to add attachment points for jaw muscles. Haptodus had one hole behind each eye socket, called the temporal fenestra. In Rupert Oliver's book, Dimetrodon, made in the late 1980s, Petrolacosaurus made an appearance at the beginning of the book. It was then frightened by Dimetrodon, the main character, and then fled.
