The most fearful land predatory animal of the early Permian earned run average 290 million days ago fed on sharks , according to new fossil evidence .
Dimetrodonwasa holy terror of the pre - dinosaur era , the first common large predator on land . Dimetrodonswere four - legged animate being , walking on land and feature huge sails that form their most placeable feature . The big speciesgrew to four meters longand brag the first saw - comparable tooth . They also sported fang , leading to their name , which translates to “ two measures of teeth . " However , it had a problem – a dearth of food .
Paleontologist Dr. Robert Bakker of the Houston Museum of Natural Science , known for explicate the hypothesis thatdinosaurs were warm blooded , toldLive Sciencethatat the time,“There was a nub shortage all over the public . ”
With those jaw , Dimetrodonwould have been ill-sorted to a plant - based diet . However , the epoch appears to have been marked by a shortage of terrestrial herbivore on which the variousDimetrodonspecies could feed . While poke at Craddock Ranch , in theDimetrodonTexas heartland , Bakkertold the Geological Society of America(GSA ) that he found 8.5 of the predators for every one herbivore . They just did n’t seem like a sustainable diet .
Paleontologists have been puzzling over this for some time . Was there some prey that did n’t fossilise ? The reply , Bakker close , was right under their noses . conflate in with theDimetrodonremains were remnants of 60 freshwaterXenacanthsharks , which — outstandingly for creatures with cartilage rather than off-white — have fossilized well .
Whatever gain droveDimetrodononto country , Bakker advise they continued to hunt in the water , accounting for most of their diet . He draws on the work of distinguished paleontologistEverett Olsonwho propose that aquatic plants were still the major basal producers of the era , providing food for Pisces and amphibians .
The feeding hysteria did n’t all run one way . SomeDimetrodonbones have sting in them that fit the shape of shark teeth , and coprolite formed from shark droppings contain fragments ofDimetrodonbone . “ The prospicient , deeply incise marks show that carnivore had sprain limb finger cymbals around as if employing a consistency roll to dismember the Dimetrodon carcass , ” Bakker and his workfellow told the GSA .
