This handsome devil is Bunostegos akokanensis, a large reptile that lived in northern Niger 266-252 million years ago. “Imagine a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back,” writes University of Washington biologist Linda A. Tsuji. The image is an artist’s rendering based on fossils recently unearthed by Tsuji and… READ THE REST
Reptile or dinosaur?
Reptile, although they would have been contemporaries to what most people think of as dinosaurs…
From the article: “Bunostegos akokanensis…probably wasn’t winning any prehistoric beauty contests.”
Citation needed.
REPTAR
Seriously discourse “Body is invalid; try to be a little more descriptive”
Judging from the absolute dates this guy is not a dinosaur but one of the late Permian mammal-like reptires. It might be a scutosarid, judging by the bony skull, but I’d need to see a primary article, and that is most likely behind a pay wall.
This beast lived right up to the catastrophy that ended most life forms that had evolved in the Paleozoic era. 252 MYA is the date of that decimation. It wasn’t until about 225 MYA that the first dinosaurs appeared in the Mid-Triassic, and probably mannals as well, who lived for the next 160 MY under their feet.
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