Going through synapsids and early mammals is a little like showing up at a family reunion and finding out you're descended from a long line sasquatch, only, more humiliating. There's a reason we tend to focus on those that cropped up after the K-T extinction when we visually aproximate the past. Here. I'll let Lystrosaurus demonstrate:
Well, admittedly, it does look a little like your mom.
(Image Source: Wikipedia)
They're not quite a mammal -- they're a therapsid, a kind of synapsid. But the basic roots are there: one day these reject naked mole rats will evolve into the weasel looking things that one day evolve into primates that one day evolve into us. However, if you choose to reject the theory of evolution after reading that on the basis that there is no way in hell you're admitting being related to this thing then I completely understand. Or we could just claim we were adopted -- that a group of aliens left the intergalactic equivalent of a species in a basket on the doorstep of Earth.
All denials of a biological relationship aside, the weirdest thing about Lystrosaurus is that at one time they ruled the Earth. For some reason these things made it through the Permian-Triassic exinction event... and they were about all that made it through. For a time 95% of all of the vertebrates on land were a subspecies of Lystrosaurus. Scientists appear to have a wide variety of theories on why this may be including 'they were just lucky'. This, of course, is basically the academic equivalent of shrugging one's shoulders and declaring 'damned if we know'.
Sources/Further Reading:
im tellin my mom what u said about her
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Awesome! Thanks for posting this - more interesting animals, please!
ReplyDeleteLoL he looks like he would of been extinct over a long enough timeline!
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