What is a gorgonopsian? It’s not a ‘lizard-dog’
Gorgonopsians vanished around 252 million years ago, and their lineage died with them. All gorgonopsians had daggerlike canine teeth, and species ranged widely in size. Some were as small as cats, while others were as big as polar bears.
Fossils of the newly described gorgonopsian included its knifelike canines; parts of its jaw; some vertebrae, ribs, tailbones and toe bones; and most of the bones from a hind limb, researchers reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
The specimen’s blunt-snouted skull was incomplete but is estimated to measure about 7 inches (18 centimeters) long, and the animal would have been as tall as a medium-size dog and weighed roughly 66 to 88 pounds (30 to 40 kilograms), according to study coauthor Ken Angielczyk, MacArthur Curator of Paleomammalogy at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.