images

Dimetrodon grandis portrait

by

Walter B. Myers/Novapix

Reference

t-din00-20002

Date

2009-10-12

An eleven foot long Dimetrodon grandis traverses an Earth that became cooler and dryer during the Early Permian period.
280 million years ago--long before the reign of dinosaurs--Dimetrodon emerged as the dominant land predator, a position they held for the next 20 million years. Contrary to their reptilian stance and dinosaur-like appearance, Dimetrodon are in fact more closely related to mammals, and hence to humans, than to dinosaurs or reptiles.