Diplocaulus

Diplocaulus salamandroides · Diplocaulus was an extinct, salamander-like amphibian with a boomerang-shaped head that lived in North America and Africa from the Late Carboniferous to the Late Permian.

It lived about 307 to 257 million years ago.

Diplocaulus
Photo: Creator:Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0
Diplocaulus
Photo: DataBase Center for Life Science (DBCLS), CC BY 4.0
Diplocaulus
Photo: Entelognathus, CC BY-SA 4.0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassAmphibia
OrderLepospondyli
FamilyDiplocaulidae
GenusDiplocaulus
SpeciesDiplocaulus salamandroides

Where its fossils were found

Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois, New Mexico and other US states, plus Morocco.

Fun facts

  • Diplocaulus could grow up to about 1 metre (3.3 feet) long, with a stocky, salamander-like body.
  • Wind-tunnel tests on a balsa wood and clay model suggested its head horns acted like a hydrofoil, lifting the animal quickly up through the water.
  • Its wide, horned head may have been a defence, since even a large predator like Eryops would struggle to swallow it.
  • Fossils show that the predator Dimetrodon dug up and partly ate three young Diplocaulus in a burrow, probably during a drought.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).