Filed under: Uncategorized This post is the third installment in
a multi-part series on the evolution of mammal-like reptiles.
Time has turned it to rock, but even across the distance of so
many millions of years, the head of a gorgonopsid still retains
an aura of unspeakable ferocity. Gorgonopsia is a suborder of
predaceous therapsids (“mammal-like reptiles”) that arose during
the Middle Permian. For much of their early evolutionary
history, gorgonopsians were rare, modest-sized carnivores,
eclipsed in numbers and ecological relevance by thick-skulled,
meat-eating Dinocephalians. The (rather unexplained) demise of
the Dinocephalians at the end of the Middle Permian threw open
new predatory niches for these “gorgon-faced” hunters to
exploit. Perhaps the most striking feature of the gorgonopsid
skull is the presence of two enlarged canines – reminiscent of
the dagger-like fangs of sabre-toothed cats from the far more
recent Pleistocene epoch – that hang menacingly from the upper
jaw. The lower canines were als