Mummified Lystrosaurus found!

[Faelrin]

Seriously check out the paper abstract (paywalled sadly), because at least you can get a look at this beautiful specimen and some other info:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018222003777

What an amazing discovery made and an exciting one with Lystrosaurus getting some due with being in Dominion. Not only that but this will be so helpful for understanding what some early synapsid integument looks like. Can't wait to see all the paleoart and figures that follow.

[Totoro]

This is truly amazing, thanks for sharing this, @Faelrin!

Reading of another find in South Africa's Great Karoo Basin makes me think of the excellent Peter Ward book on Gorgons and protomammals: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/630160.Gorgon

If you've never ready anything by Peter Ward, check him out.  I've read and thoroughly enjoyed most of his books. 

[Halichoeres]

Came here to post this! Such a cool set of specimens. If anyone wants the pdf, just pm me your email address.

[Faelrin]

@Halichoeres I would most certainly like to see the whole paper.

Do they also by chance go into detail about the integument at all? I know scales are ancestral, but that old Estemmenosuchus paper suggested it had smoother skin (I really hope that paper's material gets revisited someday, assuming it wasn't lost to time), if I recall correctly. I'm really curious to see what this little Lystrosaurus has since it is a bit younger then Estemmenosuchus was.

[Halichoeres]

@Faelrin sent!

They refer to the skin as "mamillated" and "pustular," and make no reference to scales. It seems to be basically smooth but with lumpy bits. That's consistent with observations of Estemmenosuchus, since as you say Lystrosaurus is younger, but also more crownward. The paper really leans in to the ecological implications; my guess is that another paper is in the works with more discussion of the integument.

[Faelrin]

@Halichoeres Thanks so much for sending it and that breakdown. Yeah I saw the pustular thing in the abstract, but um wasn't quite sure what they were getting at with it. Would be nice to see a paper break the detail on the integument of this finding and the older Estemmenosuchus one as well, like that one Carnotaurus paper did (and with much needed up to date high resolution imaging).

The ecological implications are also good to be made aware of as well, which is another reason I thought this paper would be interesting to check out, especially considering this find is from shortly after the devastating P-T extinction event. As much as I love the individual fauna, and learning about them, the ecosystems they lived in are also fascinating to learn about, and quite important.

[Faelrin]

So rather then using the edit feature, I think this is worth a separate post.

So that paper was more interesting then I imagined. I really appreciate the investigative work done to figure out the "crime scene" of the bone bed, and the different ways the individuals died, depending on the circumstances of the environmental conditions, based on the different states of fossilization the remains were in, and the geological record. It was also interesting to read the comparisons to the modern day African savanna ecosystem in regards to drought, and extant non migratory animals, which also helps to visualize the circumstances the animals unfortunately found themselves in. It's also interesting that the remains of numerous fauna like Prolacerta and some cynodonts, alongside Lystrosaurus share evidence of shelter sharing, in response to harsh conditions. Unfortunate that the abstract doesn't cover these particular details however.

I was also unaware there were no adult Lystrosaurus found to date, and that they only consist of sub-adults and juveniles, despite their extensive remains.

Also worth mentioning that the specimen in the graphical abstract, SAM-PK-K10971, belongs to the type species, L. murrayi, and was a juvenile. It is unfortunate the abstract lacks the scale bars of the images within the paper. Within the extremely zoomed in picture, they use a scale bar of 5mm (or 0.5cm), which shows the pustular texture of the skin is incredibly tiny, and for the image of the specimen in whole, they use a scale bar of 10cm. Dumped it into paint, and copied and pasted the scale bar to fill in the area and came up with approximate dimensions of over 110cm for the length, and over 70cm for the width of the specimen. Confusingly however they use a scale bar of 3cm in the inverted color image of the whole specimen, which would give 21cm for the width, and 33cm for the length instead. @Halichoeres Was there an actual measurement of the specimen in the paper that I missed? Was this also an error or did I read that particular graph incorrectly?

[Halichoeres]

No, I don't think they reported the total length or other dimensions of the mummified specimens. I think they just weren't very interested in that. The discrepancy in size as implied by their scale bars is pretty strange, though!