Trirachodon
Name:
Trirachodon
(three ridge tooth).
Phonetic: Tri-rak-o-don.
Named By: Harry Govier Seeley - 1895.
Synonyms: T. kannemeyeri, T. minor.
Classification: Chordata, Synapsida,
Therapsida, Cynodontia, Trirachodontidae, Trirachodontinae.
Species: T. berryi (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: About 50 centimetres long.
Known locations: Namibia - Omingonde Formation.
South Africa - Burgersdorp Formation. Zambia - Ntawere
Formation.
Time period: Anisian of the Triassic.
Fossil representation: Multiple individuals.
Trirachodon is a genus of cynodont therapsid that lived in Africa during the mid Triassic. Trirachodon are known to have lived in burrows, and studies of the burrow structure as well as the discovery of up to twenty individual Trirachodon in the same burrow system show us that Trirachodon most probably lived in communal burrows. In this example it is thought that all of the Trirachodon died at the same time as one another when they were caught in a flash flood.
Further reading
- Researches on the structure, organization and classification of
the fossil Reptilia. On Diademdon. - Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society of London B 185:1029–1041. - Harry Govier
Seeley - 1895.
- On the structure, organization and classification of the fossil
Reptilia III. On Trirachodon. - Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of London B 186:48–57.- Harry Govier Seeley -
1895.
- Changing fluvial environments and vertebrate taphonomy in response
to climatic drying in a Mid−Triassic rift valley fill: The Omingonde
Formation (Karoo Supergroup) of Central Namibia. - Palaios
17(3):249–267. - R. Smith & R. Swart -
2002.
- Growth and life habits of the Triassic cynodont Trirachodon,
inferred from bone histology. - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
49(4):619-627. - J. Botha & A. Chinsamy -
2004.
- A new trirachodontid cynodont from the lower levels of the
Burgersdorp Formation (Lower Triassic) of the Beaufort Group,
South Africa and the cladistic relationships of Gondwanan
gomphodonts. - Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
147:383-413. - F. Abdala, J. Neveling, J. Welman -
2006.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |