Edaphosaurus

Edaphosaurus pogonias · A sail-backed plant-eater with a tiny head, a wide body and little crossbars on the spines of its sail.

It lived about 303.4 to 272.5 million years ago.

Edaphosaurus
Photo: Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0
Edaphosaurus
Photo: {{</nowiki>Creator:Dmitry Bogdanov}}, CC BY 3.0
Edaphosaurus
Photo: ДиБгд at Russian Wikipedia, Public domain

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassSynapsida
OrderPelycosauria
FamilyEdaphosauridae
GenusEdaphosaurus
SpeciesEdaphosaurus pogonias

Where its fossils were found

Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Ohio (USA), with scraps from eastern Germany.

Fun facts

  • Edaphosaurus had a tall sail on its back, held up by very long spines that were studded with small crossbars.
  • Edaphosaurus and the famous Dimetrodon each evolved a back sail on their own, an unusual case of parallel evolution.
  • Edaphosaurus had a remarkably small head for its body, with batteries of peglike teeth in its mouth for crushing and grinding plants.
  • Scientists first thought Edaphosaurus ate shellfish-like animals such as mollusks, but they now think it ate plants.

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