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WillemSvdMerwe — Lystrosaurus 2
Published: 2013-03-23 20:18:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 5314; Favourites: 50; Downloads: 84
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Here is a colour reconstruction of Lystrosaurus. I will try and do a full painting soon showing it in likely habitat. I will also, I hope, soon create more reconstructions of Dicynodonts known from South Africa... I find it a very fascinating group!Related content
Comments: 13
Hi Willem, there are some nice life size models of Dicynodonts on display at the Iziko museum in central Cape Town at the moment.
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I hope to be able to go there someday! I believe they've some wonderful fossils of other ancient synapsids there also.
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One of the better Lystrosaurus pictures I've seen so far, good job!
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Nice! It is fascinating to think the fact that once upon a time in Early Triassic most land vertebrates were Lystrosaurus. By the way which species of Lystro this is?
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Thanks! It's based on fossils identified as Lystrosaurus murrayi.
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Amazing work, all your dicynodonts looks really great! I never knew there were so many species until you uploaded all your paintings.
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Hi again, and thanks! But this is the only kind of dicynodont I've uploaded so far ... the others are dinocephalians, a different group - although both are synapsids. There *were* a huge variety of different dicynodonts and I really hope to bring more of them to deviantart soon.
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Sorry, I tend to mix up the different groups.
How do you tell a dicynodont from a dinocepalian?
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The dinocephalians are the older group, they lived in the middle Permian between 269 and 263 million years ago - a brief reign (so it would seem) but still they achieved amazing diversity and were found from South Africa and South America to Russia and China. Most of them were very large (3-5 m). They mostly had very big skulls with thickened bone. Most were herbivores but a few were probably carnivores. The carnivorous ones included a few smaller and more lightly built types with longer tails. The herbivorous ones were big and ponderous with short tails. The dinocephalians seem to have all died out by the late Permian.
The dicynodonts evolved during the middle Permian but had a much longer reign. At the end of the Permian when the dinocephalians were all already long extinct there were a huge diversity of dicynodonts, but then the Permian-Triassic extinction event wiped them all out except for two groups, the Lystrosaurids and the Kannemeyerids. The latter group diversified again and survived until the late Triassic (about 200 million years ago).
Dicynodonts are mainly recognized by their jaws and teeth. The front of the jaw was toothless and probably covered by a horny beak - many of the dicynodonts had a turle-like hooked jaw tip. Then behind the toothless portion most of them had two tusks in the upper jaw. They had long, barrel-shaped bodies and fairly short but robust limbs. All of them had short tails. They varied from very small - only 20 cm in length - to very large and heavy, 3 m or more in length. As far as we know all of them were herbivores.
I'll do some pencil reconstructions of dicynodonts - you'll see, they're easy to recognize although the group was so diverse. I think I'll try for a 'montage' showing a bunch of dinocephalians and also a bunch of dicynodonts in one picture for comparison purposes.
There were *many* other groups of ancient synapsids, the old things from which mammals evolved. Many were found here in South Africa. I've been utterly fascinated with them since as a young kid I stumbled upon a special exhibition in the Pretoria Museum showing the actual fossils. There are so many fossils and most of them no artist has sat with and pondered so as to come up with a reconstruction of the entire animal. I consider it a shame and outrage that so very few people even in South Africa are aware of these incredible old critturs.
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Welcome to the club 
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regards jacek
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