Sunday, May 27, 2007

An Interesting Gorgonopsid Paper



Very interesting paper by Alex Freeman. I was especially intrigued by:

Only one piece of fossilised skin has been found, from the dinocephalian Estemmenosuchus, which shows a smooth, undifferentiated surface bearing no scales or hair follicles. The skin was, however, well supplied with glands, and was probably soft and pliable (Chudinov, 1970, cited in Bennett and Ruben, 1986). The skin may thus have resembled that of a rhinoceros. This suggests that scales may already have been lost in the Gorgonopsia, which diverged from the mammalian line later than Estemmenosuchus.


No scales, no hair, no feathers, just something reminiscent of rhino skin. Interesting. Very interesting. kewl. Author also thinks that it wasn't endothermic based on the bones.

No comments: