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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/dec/28/top-fossil-discoveries-of-2017
Following the biggest mass extinction in Earth’s geological history, at the end of the Permian, evolution in the Triassic period was like a teenager who has just left home for the first time. Finding itself in a new world free of constraints, it became wildly experimental. Many of these wacky, chimeric combinations have never been repeated (similar to most people’s experience of the 1980s). Evolution likes to try everything at least once.
In 2017, Shringasaurus indicus (‘horned lizard of India’) evidenced the singular nature of these Triassic lifeforms. This newly-found archosauromorph waddled on four sprawled legs across what is now India, around 240m years ago. It had two forward pointing horns on its head, at the end of a long neck and body. With a humped, powerful shoulder at the front and sinuous back-end with long tail, it was like the love-child of a rhino and a komodo dragon. At around three-and-a-half metres long, this chunky, odd-ball herbivore would have been analogous to the large bovid species of the modern world (cows). It has been suggested that the horns of Shringasaurus were used for sexual selection, as in cattle. Having found the partial remains of several Shringasaurus individuals of different ages and genders, researchers were able to say a lot about how this animal grew, and that the horns were sexually dimorphic – meaning that only male animals possessed them.
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Spectacular & odd finds like this guy are why paleontology is a dynamic science that is always reexamining past classifications of the natural world.
NOTE: :"the horns were sexually dimorphic – meaning that only male animals possessed them" - I couldn't resist the parallel here with the modern usage of males being horny.
Following the biggest mass extinction in Earth’s geological history, at the end of the Permian, evolution in the Triassic period was like a teenager who has just left home for the first time. Finding itself in a new world free of constraints, it became wildly experimental. Many of these wacky, chimeric combinations have never been repeated (similar to most people’s experience of the 1980s). Evolution likes to try everything at least once.
In 2017, Shringasaurus indicus (‘horned lizard of India’) evidenced the singular nature of these Triassic lifeforms. This newly-found archosauromorph waddled on four sprawled legs across what is now India, around 240m years ago. It had two forward pointing horns on its head, at the end of a long neck and body. With a humped, powerful shoulder at the front and sinuous back-end with long tail, it was like the love-child of a rhino and a komodo dragon. At around three-and-a-half metres long, this chunky, odd-ball herbivore would have been analogous to the large bovid species of the modern world (cows). It has been suggested that the horns of Shringasaurus were used for sexual selection, as in cattle. Having found the partial remains of several Shringasaurus individuals of different ages and genders, researchers were able to say a lot about how this animal grew, and that the horns were sexually dimorphic – meaning that only male animals possessed them.
=========================================================================
Spectacular & odd finds like this guy are why paleontology is a dynamic science that is always reexamining past classifications of the natural world.
NOTE: :"the horns were sexually dimorphic – meaning that only male animals possessed them" - I couldn't resist the parallel here with the modern usage of males being horny.
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