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Topic: Pelycosaurs

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Dimetrodon

Therapsida

Mammalia

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	Introduction to the Pelycosaurs
		The "pelycosaurs" are members of the Synapsida, a major branch of the Amniota, or egg-laying tetrapods.
		Pelycosaurs are the earliest, most primitive synapsids, a group characterized by a single dermal opening in the skull permitting muscle attachment to the jaw.
		The pelycosaurs indeed resemble large lizards in their overall appearance, but as we have seen, this is a misnomer since pelycosaurs are not reptiles.
	www.ucmp.berkeley.edu /synapsids/pelycosaurs.html (1258 words)

	Biology 356 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Although both pelycosaurs and early thrapsids are paraphyletic taxa at the base of the clade that includes advanced therapsids and mammals, these Paleozoic reptiles have played a pivotal role in considerations of synapsid evolution, including the origin of mammals.
		As primitive synapsids, pelycosaurs are characterized by the presence of an anteriorly inclined plate-like occiput, the small posttemporal fenestra is bordered by the supraoccipital, tabular, and opisthotic bones; the lateral temporal fenestra bordered is by jugal, squamosal and postorbital bones, the pillar-like septomaxilla has a broad base that straddles the maxilla-premaxillary suture.
		The casseids were a widespread and diverse group of herbivorous pelycosaurs, with a fossil record that extended from the Early Permian of North America and western Europe to the Late Permian of eastern Europe.
	www.erin.utoronto.ca /~w3bio356/lectures/permo_carb_synapsid.html (3046 words)

	Palaeos Vertebrates 390.000 Synapsida Overview
		In their position on the family tree of life, the pelycosaurs are the earliest and most primitive members of the synapsids, the group that (in the old classification) leads to or (in the new classification) includes mammals.
		One distinctive feature of many pelycosaurs is a large sail along the back, formed by the great elongation of neural spines of the vertebrae, sometimes up to a meter in length in the larger species.
		But the most distinguishing feature of the Pelycosaurs (and a character retained by their Therapsid descendants) were not their famous sail (which not all pelycosaurs had anyway) but the so-called synapsid skull, which features a single, large opening on the side of the skull (the temporal region) behind the orbit (eye socket).
	www.palaeos.com /Vertebrates/Units/Unit390/000.html (1735 words)

	The Pelycosauria
		They were supplanted by their descendants, the Therapsids or "mammal-like reptiles", which had a short but glorious reign before being mostly decimated by the terminal Permian extinction events, an opportunity that allowed the Archosauria to take over.
		One distinctive feature of many pelycosaurs is a large sail along the back, formed by the great elongation of neural spines of the vertebrae, sometimes upto a meter in length in the larger species.
		But the most distinguishing feature of the Pelycosaurs (and a character retained by their Therapsid descendants) were not their famous famous sail (which not all pelycosaurs had anyway) but the so-called synapsid skull, which features a single, large opening on the side of the skull (the temporal region) behind the orbit (eye socket).
	www.kheper.net /evolution/pelycosauria/Pelycosauria.htm (992 words)

	biology - Pelycosaur
		The pelycosaurs were smallish to large (up to 3 meters or more) primitive Upper Paleozoic synapsid reptiles.
		At least two pelycosaur clades independently evolved a tall sail, consisting of elongated vertebral spines: the edaphosaurids and the sphenacodontids.
		Pelycosaur fossils have been found mainly in Europe and North America, although some small late-surviving forms are known from Russia and South Africa.
	biologydaily.com /biology/Pelycosaurs (161 words)

	i18 Early Permian pelocosaurs (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The latter include advanced mammal-like reptiles that achieved a worldwide distribution, and primitive mammal-like reptiles, called pelycosaurs, that were restricted in the range of their habitat to the equatorial climatic zone of Southern Laurasia (their fossils have not been found in Gondwanaland strata).
		Pelycosaurs are not known with certainty to have survived after the Early Permian.
		Carnivorous pelycosaurs, short-spined and sailed (as Dimetredon) genera can be recognized because these had dagger-like teeth that were differentiated (a mammalian characteristic) to function as incisors, stabbing canines, and molars.
	geowords.com /histbooknetscape/i18.htm (296 words)

	Fall'96Syllabus
		The most famous pelycosaur, a carnivorous form called Dimetrodon, was a "sail-back." Very tall nueral spines on the vertebrae supported a membranous "sail," which may have been useful in rapidly gaining heat from sunshine or losing heat to a cooling breeze.
		As compared to other pelycosaurs, Dimetrodon is advanced towards the therapsid (and hence the mammalian) morphological condition in the presence of minor tooth differentiation - with somewhat flattened incisor teeth and a sharp, stabbing canine tooth farther back in the mouth.
		The most important morphological modification of pelycosaur design was the development of erect limb posture (the femur bears an inturned head, as in mammals and dinosaurs), which would have allowed for more extended periods of vigorous physical activity.
	ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu /00FallClass/geo143/lect/lect19.html (650 words)

	WSC: PHYS 0106: Earth History Timeline: Pelycosaurs
		The pelycosaurs could have used their sails to warm themselves by facing the sail towards the sun, or to cool themselves facing it into the wind and away from the sun.
		Thus, in hard times, pelycosaurs, or their descendents with the synapsid skull, were more likely to survive due to their enhanced ability as killers.
		Most pelycosaurs were carnivores and had large, sharp teeth to aid them in killing and eating their prey.
	biology.wsc.ma.edu /physicalscience/young/hgeol/geoinfo/timeline/pelycosaurs/pelycosaur.html (355 words)

	Mammal - Open Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Hence pelycosaurs and cynodonts are sometimes called mammal-like reptiles, though this is stricly incorrect since these two are not reptiles, but rather synapsids.
		Most mammals are terrestrial, but a number are aquatic, including dolphins and whales, which are the largest of all animals.
		Early mammals were small shrew-like animals that fed on insects.
	open-encyclopedia.com /Mammal (1379 words)

	Synapsid Reptiles
		The first fossils of the pelycosaurs are found in the mid-carboniferous,which is shortly after the origin of the reptiles.
		But the sphenacodonts were the group of pelycosaurs that evolvedinto the Therapsids, an animal that you have in the IllustratedNotes there which is the one that may be familiar to you.
		A pelycosaur, likemost reptiles, or a crocodile have what we call a sprawling gate,that upper segment of the leg is running sort of parallel tothe ground.
	www.csupomona.edu /~dfhoyt/classes/zoo138/SYNAPSID.HTML (4532 words)

	Encyclopedia: Mammal (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Hence pelycosaurs and cynodonts are sometimes called "mammal-like reptiles", though this is strictly incorrect since in modern parlance these two are not reptiles, but rather synapsids.
		The jaw is either of the two opposable structures forming, or near the entrance to, the mouth.
		The pelycosaurs were smallish to large (upto 3 meters or more) primitive Late Paleozoic synapsid reptiles.
	www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Mammal (9179 words)

	Evolution - Fossils and the history of life
		Pelycosaur fossils are preserved from the Pennsylvanian and Permian.
		The therapsids have temporal fenestrae which are generally larger and more mammal-like than pelycosaurs; their teeth in some cases show more serial differentiation; and later forms had evolved a secondary palate.
		A secondary palate enables the animal to eat and breathe at the same time and is a sign of a more active, perhaps warm-blooded, way of life.
	www.blackwellpublishing.com /ridley/tutorials/Fossils_and_the_history_of_life24.asp (351 words)

	PELYCOSAUR - Paleontology and Geology Glossary
		Pelycosaurs (meaning "basin lizards") were the earliest, and most primitive synapsids; they were not dinosaurs.
		This pelycosaur (early synapsids) was related to Dimetrodon and had long spines growing out of its backbone.
		Casea was a small, sail-less pelycosaur from the early Permian period.
	www.enchantedlearning.com /subjects/dinosaurs/glossary/Pelycosaur.shtml (607 words)

	Search Tuna Report for Mammal-Like Reptiles (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Introduction To The Pelycosaurs Turbinates in the Therapsids: Evidence for Late Permian origins of mammalian endothermy....
		Most Pelycosaur fossils, like the famous sail-backed Dimetrodon are found from North America the more advanced mammal-like reptiles, the therapsids, evolved (probably from the land living Pelycosaurs) sometime in the Permian....
		Unlike other pelycosaurs that did not have fins, Dimetrodon was able to warm up in the morning and cool off more efficiently during the heat of the day due to its sail....
	www.searchtoona.com /ftlive/741.html (3077 words)

	Late Paleozoic Impacts
		The plant-fossils seem to indicate that throughout the Permian the climate was generally similar to a modern climate; lower latitudes being warm and wet, higher latitudes mild to cold, up to glacier-level.
		At the beginning of Late Permian, the pelycosaurs are replaced by their evolutionary successors, the therapsids.
		The main difference between therapsids and pelycosaurs appears to have been the therapsid ability to stand a harsher environment, where the pelycosaurs couldn't compete with them.
	www.fmnh.helsinki.fi /users/haaramo/Meteor_Impacts/Late_Paleozoic_impacts.htm (1937 words)

	Thermoregulation in Therapsids
		From the start, they were able to deal with greater extremes of temperature than most of their pelycosaur contemporaries; the earliest known therapsid fossils are located in semi-arid lowlands that were inhospitable to most pelycosaurs (Kemp 1982).
		The only pelycosaurs able to survive in this environment were those like Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon, which used large sails to dissipate excess heat and buffer variations in body temperature (Bennett 1996).
		The bones of pelycosaurs have a layered appearance and are poorly vascularized.
	www.geo.brown.edu /geocourses/QE/fr/classtopics/Evolutio/CarlTakei/CarlTakei.HTM (1571 words)

	Journal of Paleontology: First basal synapsids ("Pelycosaurs") from the Upper Permian-?Lower Triassic of ...
		IN THEIR monograph Review of the Pelycosauria, Romer and Price (1940), proposed that the earliest synapsids ("pelycosaurs") were cosmopolitan, despite the observation that atnniotes appeared to be restricted to the paleotropics during the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian (290-282 Ma).
		Recent research has confirmed that varanopid and caseid "pelycosaurs" were components of therapsid-doininated Late Permian faunas preserved in Russia and South-Africa (Tatarinov and Eremina, 1975; Reisz, 1986; Reisz, et al., 1998; Reisz, and Berman, 2001).
		In addition, the presence of a varanopid "pelycosaur" in South America corroborates previous ideas of close affinities of Permian insects and crustaceans from both Uruguay and Brazil to those from Eastern Europe and North American (Pinto, 1972; Pinto et al., 2000).
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa3790/is_200303/ai_n9168072 (941 words)

	Dimetrodon
		Dimetrodon was one of the mammal-like reptiles, and belonged to the group of reptiles we call the Pelycosaurs.
		The Pelycosaurs are grouped into four families, the first family was the Ophiacodontia, and the other three families arose from this group.
		The Pelycosaurs were the dominant land animals of the lower Permian Period (about 280 to 260 million years ago), and Dimetrodon was probably the dominant predator during that time.
	www.suite101.com /article.cfm/paleontology/29045 (508 words)

	Comparative Anatomy Topic 3 - Mammals (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Nearly all other animals (including most of the pelycosaurs) have only a single tooth type (typically conical, but this varies); however, most therapsids and mammals have different tooth types (canines, incisors, molars, and/or premolars) designed for different functions.
		Pelycosaurs are the fin-backed animals such as Dimetrodon.
		Pelycosaurs arose in the mid-Carboniferous, were very successful in the Permian, but went extinct by the end of the Permian after largely being replaced by the therapsids.
	www.auburn.edu /academic/classes/zy/0301/Topic3e/Topic3e.html (841 words)

	Fall'96Syllabus
		Nevertheless, before the radiation of their descendants, the therapsids, during the Late Permian, pelycosaurs (Pennsylvanian-Permian) were the most abundant group of large terrestrial herbivores and carnivores.
		More mammal-like than pelycosaurs in morphology, and presumbably physiology as well, were the therapsids (Permian-Jurassic), dominant large terrestrial herbivores and carnivores of the Late Permian and most of the Triassic.
		The most important morphological modification of pelycosaur anatomy was the development of erect limb posture (the femur bears an inturned head, as in mammals and dinosaurs), which would have allowed for more extended periods of vigorous physical activity.
	ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu /03SprgClass/geo143/lectures/lect19.html (632 words)

	Palaeos Paleozoic: Permian: The Permian Period
		To the left is a stand of Calamite trees.
		The Red Beds are full of the fossil remains of Pelycosaurs like the finbacks like Dimetrodon, which was clearly the dominant predator of these environments for some 20 million years.
		The first, the pelycosaur dynasty, included the large finbacks of the early Permian such as Dimetrodon, Edaphosaurus, Ctenospondylus, and Secodontosaurus, all of which attained a lengths some 3 meters, as well a similar types that lacked a "sail".
	www.palaeos.com /Paleozoic/Permian/Permian.htm (1677 words)

	Emergence of Warm Bloodedness. Who Lies Sleeping? The Dinosaur Heritage. AskWhy! Publications.
		The pelycosaurs survived essentially unchanged for about 20 million years but then were replaced in only a few million years by the therapsids, mammal-like reptiles which eventually evolved into mammals.
		The pelycosaur predator, dimetrodon, had a variety of prey and was often the most common animal in its environment, an unusual situation, the food chain usually narrowing towards the top.
		The predator:prey ratio for therapsids indicated a marked move towards warm-blood and indeed the explosive adaptive radiation with which they replaced the pelycosaurs is typical of the warm-bloods.
	web.ukonline.co.uk /michael.magee/awwls/00/wls117.html (917 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Primitive synapsids, the pelycosaurs, are the most conspicuous terrestrial vertebrates of their time, and their fossil remains record the earliest successful adaptive radiation of amniotes to a broad array of herbivorous and predators modes of life.
		Their first hand knowledge of this group, previous studies of numerous pelycosaur taxa, and availability of representative specimens of three outgroups for direct osteological comparisons will eliminate the need to rely heavily on outdated literature.
		In addition to providing an assessment of the ingroup relationships of pelycosaurs, the present study will assess the relationship of pelycosaurs to other Paleozoic vertebrates, including their therapsid descendants.
	www.cs.utexas.edu /users/yguan/NSFAbstracts/Abstracts/BIO/DEB.BIO.a9004171.txt (221 words)

	SYNAPSID RULE (ACT I) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Pelycosaur communities of the early Permian only occur in the tropical zone.
		Carnivorous pelycosaurs: up to 2 meters and 200 kg, big heads and eyes, long snouts, strong jaws, pointy teeth with some differentiation from front-to-back.
		Herbivorous pelycosaurs: medium to large (3 m, 300 kg), small heads, blunt undifferentiated teeth, large gut cavity, some had sails.
	www.es.ucsc.edu /~pkoch/lectures/lecture12.html (1103 words)

	dinosaurs1
		As will be discussed later on, the application of mechanical principles to the vertebral columns of dinosaurs and certain pelycosaurs allows an approach to the lifestyle of these extinct vertebrates from an entirely independent viewpoint which, therefore, does not necessarily lean on former suppositions and textbook opinions, mostly dating back to the nineteenth century.
		Furthermore, the pelycosaur Dimetrodon from the Permian, the Triassic reptile Ctenosauriscus as well as the Cretaceous theropod Spinosaurus seem to have existed under comparable environmental conditions, to judge from the red- dish sediments in which they were embedded.
		Probably, the process elongation in these pelycosaurs can likewise be explained as an adaptation to increased vertically acting forces and thus to a terrestrial lifestyle.
	www.ebel-k.de /dinosaurs1/dinosaurs1.html (6935 words)

	BioForum 4 - Bruce Tiffney - pt 13
		The Pelycosaur Edaphosaurus is reasonably common in the Late Paleozoic but it is not like Volkswagens on a city street.
		By the early Permian, however, immediate descendants of the herbivorous pelycosaurs, the early dicynodonts, are just all over the place.
		The group that initially radiated was in the synapsid lineage, our ancestors, descendants of the pelycosaurs, and included a whole bunch of herbivores called dicynodonts.
	www.accessexcellence.org /bioforum/bf04/tiffney/bf04d13.html (246 words)

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