Another exciting entry in the "Primer" series (which started with hupehsuchians)! Again, we're tackling a Triassic oddity. There are lots to choose from. Indeed, I sense a theme!
The Late Triassic was an exciting time in the history of
life on Earth. Ecosystems were finally in full recovery after the brutal
Permio-Triassic Extinction in which life nearly died, and the ancestors of
modern groups were becoming established—this is where you find the great-great
granddaddies of birds, mammals, and crocodilians. However, even though the
world’s food webs and the roles within it were similar to today, the actual
composition of those roles was much different. Mother Nature was going through
a period of divine inspiration: the predator guild was ruled by large, vicious (distant) relatives of crocodiles—Postosuchus, Carnufex, and Teratosaurus—preyed on their own herbivorous relatives, the armored
aetosaurs. These critters looked like a cross between an armadillo and a
crocodile, but grubbed around on the ground for plants. The other big role in the herbivore guild went to the dicynodonts, therapsid holdovers from the Permian
with tusked, toothless, beaked jaws, some of which grew to be the size of
cows.
