A few months ago on Virtual Fossil Friday, we got an awesome Zoom tour of the Whiteside Museum of Natural History, located in the Permian Red Beds of western Texas. I got to learn more about Dimetrodon than I ever knew I wanted to know, and I came away really wanting to make this graphic for my merch. My dad is from Texas, and I'm proud of the Lone Star State being home to the largest species of Dimetrodon, D. grandis. They really do make them bigger in Texas!
I find drawing Dimetrodon a fun challenge, because it's not just a big lizard with a sail on its back--it's a basal synapsid, a cousin to mammals. Synapsids aren't even reptiles; they're a totally different branch of amniotes. That's why I feel it's important to portray them as something fundamentally different than reptiles despite the superficial similarities. These creatures were on their way to becoming mammals and their life reconstructions need to reflect that.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.