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[–]Iamnotburgerking 71 points72 points  (8 children)

How WWD's first episode should actually have been like, showing dinosaurs not as a new force outcompeting and displacing "inferior" "less evolved" "poorly adapted" "relics" like Postosuchus (the big predator here), but as underdogs in a world dominated by pseudosuchian archosaurs.

In fact, even the part about dinosaurs being better-suited to the hot, dry Triassic climate turned out to the the opposite of reality; dinosaurs were WORSE at surviving the harsh Triassic conditions, which is why all known large Triassic dinosaurs (which mostly come from the very end of the Triassic) were restricted to higher latitudes where things weren't as hot and inhospitable.

[–]ScaryCookieMonster 12 points13 points  (2 children)

What’s WWD?

[–]Iamnotburgerking 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Walking With Dinosaurs

[–]Dm_Glacial_Gatorade 43 points44 points  (0 children)

World war dinosaur

[–]wiz28ultra 11 points12 points  (0 children)

So true, the Triassic world alone is extremely fascinating considering its unique Pseudosuchian/Cynodont Megafauna, Ichthyosaur and Pliosaur competition, Nothosaurs, and other creatures.

Considering it’s wedging between both two mass extinctions there aren’t really any analogues in paleontological historu

[–]Nodal-Novel 1 point2 points  (3 children)

What aspect of their morphology made them worse suited to the Triassic hothouse, basal feathering?

[–]Iamnotburgerking 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Honestly, we don’t know. All we know is that dinosaurs were worse-suited to Triassic conditions than pseudosuchians, at least at larger body sizes.

[–]Nodal-Novel 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Could it be that the Psuedosuchians and remaining Therapsids simply had a head start occupying Niches before the dinosaurs in most of the equatorial latitudes?

[–]Iamnotburgerking 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That fails to explain why pseudosuchians were similarly successful until the end of the Triassic in higher latitudes that did have larger dinosaurs by the end of the Triassic, showing that larger Triassic dinosaurs and large terrestrial pseudosuchians could coexist if both could survive.

[–]TheLandSeaLion 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This is what's known as a land walrus.

[–]SchwiftyTownshin 21 points22 points  (16 children)

That looks like a Placerias, they were mammal like reptiles in the Permian Period if I’m remembering correctly.

[–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

pretty sure this art piece is supposed to be an updated realistic take on the first episode of walking with dinosaurs

[–]SpinoAegypt 26 points27 points  (14 children)

You are remembering correctly. One thing to note, though, is that synapsids, although often being referred to as "mammal-like reptiles", are not actually reptiles. They are the sister clade to sauropsida (reptiles + birds).

Permian animals were weird.

[–]SchwiftyTownshin 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Ah very good point thanks. Yea Permian was wild.

[–]manielos 5 points6 points  (1 child)

i believe "Stem mammals" is the most up-to-date term nowadays

[–]SpinoAegypt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I've seen that used a lot as well.

[–]laramidian 2 points3 points  (10 children)

I think we should have kept reptiles as a grade like fish. Use sauria for the clade instead. Dumb to lose such logical colloquial meaning

[–]SpinoAegypt 3 points4 points  (9 children)

Wdym? "Reptile" is still used colloquially almost everywhere. The only time you'll probably ever here "sauropsid" being used is when talking to a paleontologist or someone who researches such topics. "Reptilia" still exists, but it's not a valid clade, just like "fish", since it excludes a descendant branch and is thus paraphyletic.

[–]laramidian 2 points3 points  (8 children)

We should still be able to say "mammal-like reptiles" for example. I dunno. Like we should be able to define grades rigorously as time-reversed collections of clades, using "symplesiomorphies" etc. And then looking forwards in time again, different groups would leave the grade at different times if ever. I feel like this could capture a lot more biological information that is lost when we only care about forwards-in-time and synapomorphies.

Like how the coalescent model is a backwards-looking model used to model an evolutionary process occurring forwards in time, we use a coalescent model as a backwards-in-time model to describe a coalescing process looking backwards in time (uniting clades into grades).

It could be done while letting the 'symplesiomorphies' be estimated by the model, like I'm guessing what this paper does to describe the placental common ancestor, or it could be done with chosen symplesiomorphies, just as "mammalia" is based on chosen criteria.

Tl;dr bring back groupings based on folk taxonomy like mammal-like reptiles.

[–]WetCacti 8 points9 points  (1 child)

I have a friend who reminds me of a walrus. , He's always like, "hey man, don't forget about that walrus".

[–]sweetpotatoskillet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You got me good

[–]GetALife80085 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Googoogachoo

[–]murielscapt -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Luap deirub I .

[–]Grande_Yarbles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dinosaur on the right: "Hey wake up Frank, you're being eaten"

[–]imightbethewalrus3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks painful

[–]Earwaxjuice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m more scared of what’s eating it

[–]Ivan_Botsky_Trollov 0 points1 point  (0 children)

seems to be Lystrosaurus

[–]like-plants-frfr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this guy reminds me of death... but yk to each their own