STL Science Center

STL Science Center

02 March 2018

Smug Titan

Titanophoneus was a dinocephalian therapsid. A group, as we have discussed, well on its way to possessing characteristics that we identify exclusively with mammals. It is interesting, then, that most of the illustrations that we have looked at this week possess very few characteristics of mammals and look almost like squat reptiles instead. For that reason, it is very important that we end the week looking at a version of Titanophoneus that appears more mammalian than other illustrations. This version appears mammalian mostly due to the fact that a short coating of almost soft appearing hair, maybe we could even call it fur, all along the body of this Titanophoneus. This is also possibly the calmest looking Titanophoneus we have seen this week; the majority of illustrations show Titanophoneus chasing prey, eating, or at the very least in some form of motion (i.e. walking or preparing to chase prey). Find the image at this link on Dmitry Bogdanov's DeviantArt site.

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