Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Permian Post Teaser/Primer

(nice pict, huh? Wish I was that talented. There are a few issues with the pict, but now's not the time)


The post that I am trying to prepare for this weekend is about the terrestrial Permian ecology just prior to the Great Dying. If I have time, I will do a characterization of the two places we have a good record of vertebrate fossils. I strongly recommend that people go do a quick of the concept of a "faunal stage" though. While its something of an antiquated term, it is useful for describing an time period of a regional ecology.

More later.

4 comments:

  1. What dicynodont is that? And what issues do you have to the picture?

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  2. I do believe its supposed to be a member of the genus Dicynodon. However, my objections to the pict are NOT with the critter's reconstruction, but rather the flora.

    While the creators' of the pict did a good job of making sure that there's no flowers present, there are a fair amount of flowering plants there, making all of this a bit less than accurate. Hence, my minibeef.

    Pedantic, I know.

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  3. Given the length between the end of the Permian and the beginning of the Cretaceous, I would say that's more than a quibbling point.

    One wonders though; would that long-surviving dicynodont from the Australian Cretaceous have seen flowering plants?

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  4. It probably did encounter flowering plants. IDK if anyone hs followed up on prospecting for more data on the late survivor.

    Gondwana seems to have had a number of late surviving taxa. You have to wonder why. After all, wasn't Gondwana a relatively easily traversed continent compared to the fragmentary beast up north?

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