Lystrosaurus
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| Lystrosaurus Fossil range: Early Triassic | ||||||||||||||||
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| Image:Lystrosaurus BW.jpg Lystrosaurus murrayi
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Lystrosaurus (meaning 'shovel reptile', pronunciation in IPA: /ˌlɪstrɒˈsɔrəs/) was a genus of Early Triassic Period therapsids, which lived approximately 250 million years ago in what is now Antarctica, India and South Africa. It was a common synapsid, a group of animals ancestral to (and including) mammals, more frequently referred to as Mammal-like reptiles. More specifically it was a dicynodont (which means "having two dog-teeth", a characteristic of one sex, supposedly males). Lystrosaurs were heavily-built barrel-chested medium-sized (about a meter long) herbivorous animals, approximately the size of a pig, with very stout limbs. Their teeth had become reduced to two long tusks protruding from their upper jaws. Originally they were thought to be amphibious, a sort of small reptilian hippopotamus, but some more recent evidence indicates that they lived in arid environments, which were becoming increasingly common as the Triassic unrolled.
Lystrosaurus is notable for dominating land during the Early Triassic, being found on every continent, for millions of years. This genus survived the end-Permian mass extinction and went on to thrive, becoming the most common group of terrestrial vertebrates during the Early Triassic. It is the only time a single species of animal dominated the Earth to such a degree[1]. Lystrosaurus survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event due to its random adaptation for subsisting on more resilient plant material.
Its discovery at Coalsack Bluff in the Transantarctic Mountains by Edwin H. Colbert and his team in 1969-70 helped confirm the theory of plate tectonics and convince the last of the doubters, for Lystrosaurus had already been found in the lower Triassic of southern Africa as well as in India and China.[2]
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[edit] Lystrosaurus in popular culture
Lystrosaurus played a role in the BBC television series Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs. One episode followed the journey of a group across a ravine and through a river full of the ancient crocodile relative Proterosuchus.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Gallery
Gondwana fossil map ger.png
Distribution of Lystrosaurus (brown) in the Gondwana supercontinent. |
Lystr murr1DB.jpg
Lystrosaurus murrayi |
Lystr georg1DB.jpg
Lystrosaurus georgi |
Lystr McCaigi.jpg
Lystrosaurus mccaigi. |
[edit] External links
- Palaeos.com: Dicynodontia
- Hugh Rance, The Present is the Key to the Past: "Mammal-like reptiles of Pangea"
- Lystrosaurus, Gondwana Studiosde:Lystrosaurus
es:Lystrosaurus fr:Lystrosaurus it:Lystrosaurus nl:Lystrosaurus ja:リストロサウルス pl:Lystrozaur ru:Листрозавр sk:Lystrosaurus zh:水龍獸
