Squidoo hadean era4/18/2023 The transtion from biting mechanism (1) to (2) was made possible by the movement of the lower jaw to a more forwardly position so that the serrated incisors could intermesh. (2) a more surgical type of bite in which the incisors interlocked when the jaws were closed, allowing the animal to slice out a jagged edged hunk of flesh from a carcass. The front end of the lower jaw bears a large, massy “chin” that may have served as the mechanical equivalent of a war-club, packing an extra kinetic “punch” when the jaws were drawn shut. Kemp’s (1969) functional analysis suggests that Gorgonopsid jaws were capable of performing two kinds of bites: (1) a killing bite in which the animal would use its fearsome canines as stabbing devices, piercing through hide and flesh to disable its prey. To sufficiently clear the canines before delivering a lethal bite, these animals must have been capable of drawing back their lower jaws far enough to produce gape angles in excess of 90 degrees. The lower canines were also massive -often only a third shorter than their upper counterparts. The most striking feature of the gorgonopsid skull is the presence of two enlarged canines – reminiscent of the dagger-like fangs of sabre-toothed cats from the far more recent Pleistocene epoch – that hang menacingly from the upper jaw. The (rather unexplained) demise of the Dinocephalians at the end of the Middle Permian threw open new predatory niches for these “gorgon-faced” hunters to exploit. For much of their early evolutionary history, gorgonopsians were rare, modest-sized carnivores, eclipsed in numbers and ecological relevance by thick-skulled, meat-eating Dinocephalians. Gorgonopsia is a suborder of predaceous therapsids (“mammal-like reptiles”) that arose during the Middle Permian. Time has turned it to rock, but despite the passage of so many millions of years, the head of a gorgonopsid still retains an aura of unspeakable ferocity. This post is the third installment in a multi-part series on the evolution of mammal-like reptiles.
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