Parareptiles going after soil fauna

digital painting 2022

bigger tetrapods from the Permian  /  Moradisaurus sketch  /  Eudibamus & Thuringothyris sketches

A panoply of bugs, presented like Pumbaa’s last meal, usually belongs to teaching materials about local forests and meadows. In fact, the right side was created to inform about Late Permian trace producers. While walking cockroach-like insects and millipedes are known from at least some fossils, beetle larvae and a mysterious, mole cricket-like orthoptere are fictitious elements concluded from certain trace fossils. These all could have served as protein sources for desert-dwelling reptiles.

Again concluded from tracks, this lizard-like amniote was not to be reconstructed too detailed. The rare fossil record of Late Permian reptiles of Europe does not contribute too many modern-looking forms. Best guess would be to present Owenettidae, a family of procolophonomorph parareptiles. They preserve less derived proportions. The neck spikes are speculative, but the remainder integument is well-founded and realistic. Well then, dig in!