Dicynodont therapsid

digital art, 2023

same approach with the giant captorhinid Moradisaurus

Another set used to prepare an exhibition on Late Permian trackmakers from Germany: An unidentified dicynodont therapsid was approximated with Tropidostoma. Trackmakers that are not assembled with bone finds from the very region and/or time slice are usually easy, since no super-exact proportions are needed. Once a composition requires several conspecific individuals, it is better to work with a maquette made of modelling clay, plasticine or similar stuff, sometimes even digital. It’s not too quick (and still dirty) but doubtlessly worth the effort.

Dicynodonts were dominant herbivores across the Permian-Triassic transition (the mass extinction that ended the Palaeozoic!). They survived with a few families and experienced a second heyday that lasted for almost the entire Triassic. This history was paralleled by the rather mammal-like eutheriodontians (therocephalians and cynodontians, including the origin of mammals). The remainder of the Permian terrestrial meso- and megafauna went extinct almost entirely. While the era of archosaurian reptiles started, the dicynodonts must have demonstrated one of the most resilient strategies for maintaining such a successful remnant stock of the lost Palaeozoic faunas.