Lystrosaurus

Lystrosaurus murrayi · Lystrosaurus was a heavily built, plant-eating, tusked relative of mammals that lived in the late Permian and Early Triassic across Pangaea, including Antarctica, India, China and South Africa.

It lived about 255 to 248 million years ago.

Lystrosaurus
Photo: Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY-SA 3.0
Lystrosaurus
Photo: Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY-SA 3.0
Lystrosaurus
Photo: Photograph by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassSynapsida
OrderTherapsida
FamilyLystrosauridae
GenusLystrosaurus
SpeciesLystrosaurus murrayi

Where its fossils were found

South Africa, India, China, Mongolia, European Russia and Antarctica.

Fun facts

  • For a while, 95% of land vertebrates in South Africa's Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone were Lystrosaurus, a level of dominance by one land animal that is otherwise unknown.
  • Lystrosaurus had only two teeth, a pair of tusk-like canines, and probably used a horny beak to bite off pieces of plants.
  • Mummified specimens revealed that Lystrosaurus had dimpled, leathery, hairless skin.
  • Fossils show Lystrosaurus was a powerful digger that nested in burrows, and some have been found preserved inside their burrows.

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