Sunday, October 28, 2007

Diadectes: Giant Amphibian

At 10 feet long, Diadectes was a formidable amphibian. It was also one of the first known plant-eating vertebrates - meaning that despite his impressive size and heavy bones, it was still Dimetrodon food.

Diadectes was strong - perhaps the strongest species of the time. It had shortened jaws and blunt teeth for grinding plants - but it also had shovel-shaped incisors, an example of which is shown above, found at the Seymour site. In addition, its wide, strong claws would have used for digging - to hide, or to look for roots to eat during the dry season.

Fossils from this species have been surprisingly rare in the main fossil bed the team is working on - only one or two examples per thousand. This is a mystery, as Diadectes would have been the main prey for Dimetrodon. The site is littered with Dimetrodon remains - so if not Diadectes, what was it eating?


A field sketch of Diadectes. (c) Robert T. Bakker.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

How big do you think this guy actually was?

Anonymous said...

How sharp do you think the tooth actually was?

Houston Museum of Natural Science said...

Hi Brittany and Zena,

Here are your answers, from Dr. Bakker:

"Diadectes had long sharp teeth, like a horse in need of orthodontic work. They were very good for chopping plants."

This species grew to be as big as ten feet.

Thanks for your questions!

Erin

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