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Swimming caseids
Topic Started: Nov 24 2016, 10:26 PM (735 Views)
heliosphoros
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http://phys.org/news/2016-11-diaphragm-older.html
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BossMan, Jake
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Son of God

Well this is really surprising actually
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the dark phoenix
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King of wonderlandia

Well they did always look like fat iguanas to me...didn't know MARINE iguana would be a better comparison.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Well that's a plot twist.
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babehunter1324
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The animal that looked like an iguana-turtle-hippo hybrid and which coexisted with the long known to be amphibious Dimetrodon and Secodontosaurus turned out to be amphibious.

Like, yes, it had never been proposed before, but it makes sense.
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Incinerox
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babehunter1324
Nov 25 2016, 06:01 PM
The animal that looked like an iguana-turtle-hippo hybrid and which coexisted with the long known to be amphibious Dimetrodon and Secodontosaurus turned out to be amphibious.

Like, yes, it had never been proposed before, but it makes sense.
Neither Dimetrodon nor Secodontosaurus were ever confirmed to be amphibious.

Dimetrodon was once briefly inferred to have been amphibious when they found evidence of a bone bed featuring 30 Dimetrodon and 60 Xenacanthus remains all scattered among each other. But analyses of the morphology and molecular structure of its limb bones and vertebrae, and several trackways, all suggest that Dimetrodon was otherwise completely terrestrial with a pretty efficient, semi-upright gait. The only comparison we actually have for such a concentration of land predators and aquatic prey items are bears around a salmon run.

Not to mention that coprolites implied that the Dimetrodon present regularly turned on each other.

Secodontosaurus was in fact on basically the same boat. Its post-cranial morphology is almost identical to small Dimetrodon. But since it had a narrower snout with less variable teeth, people just assumed it was a fish eating specialist. But contrary to what you'd expect from an amphibian with a piscivorous diet, Secodontosaurus was named for having cutting teeth - not what you want when you're hunting slippery fish and amphibians - and they actually had forward facing mandibular teeth (like what you see in noasaurids, which apparently specialised in grabbing burrowing animals).

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Posted Image Flish
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we only have evidence of Dimetrodon predation only on amphibians and sharks last I checked, not on any terrestrial animals in the environment.

Also don't entirely see how this is all that surprising considering the build and environment these animals lived in.
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Incinerox
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Flish
Nov 26 2016, 01:49 AM
we only have evidence of Dimetrodon predation only on amphibians and sharks
I'm curious on what amphibian species we're dealing with here. Because a lot of those were fully terrestrial in the Permian anyway. Diadectes, for example.

And what would be the implication for any relationships between Dimetrodon and these giant, swimming caseids?
Edited by Incinerox, Nov 26 2016, 04:35 AM.
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babehunter1324
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Incinerox
Nov 26 2016, 04:34 AM
Flish
Nov 26 2016, 01:49 AM
we only have evidence of Dimetrodon predation only on amphibians and sharks
I'm curious on what amphibian species we're dealing with here. Because a lot of those were fully terrestrial in the Permian anyway. Diadectes, for example.

And what would be the implication for any relationships between Dimetrodon and these giant, swimming caseids?
Well I'm pretty sure we have evidence of Dimetrodon predation on Diplocaulus which was mostly aquatic, though it's generally assumed that they were attacked while estivating. Not sure about isotopic evidance but I'm pretty sure we do have direct evidance of Dimetrodon eating Xenacanthus.

Also the fact that early Dimetrodon had non serrated teeth and lived in an envioriment with very few land vertebrates may further indicate that the smaller early species obtained a good ammount of their food from aquatic animals.

If memory serves me right Dimetrodon angelensis was found from material from the San Angelo Formation making it not just one of the largest but also one of the last Dimetrodons. In case you're wondering the San Angelo Formation macrofauna was dominated by Caseids including possible the largest known species Cotylorhynchus hancocki . I'm not saying late Dimetrodons fed on small to medium sized Caseids... But they almost certainly did.
Edited by babehunter1324, Nov 26 2016, 07:17 AM.
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Incinerox
Nov 26 2016, 04:34 AM
Flish
Nov 26 2016, 01:49 AM
we only have evidence of Dimetrodon predation only on amphibians and sharks
I'm curious on what amphibian species we're dealing with here. Because a lot of those were fully terrestrial in the Permian anyway. Diadectes, for example.

And what would be the implication for any relationships between Dimetrodon and these giant, swimming caseids?
my apologies, the "not surprising" was supposed to be a separate remark about the Caseids since some people seemed surprised they were amphibious.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Honestly, I am one of those surprised people.
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