Monday, December 23, 2024

Saber Toothed Still

 I'm really not sure what more familiar animal to compare Tiarajudens eccentricus to. They were around 265 million years ago and had saber teeth despite being an herbivore, like the saber toothed rhino I talked about a few days ago. This creature was the size of a large dog and had saber teeth, along with rows of teeth to possibly allow for rapid tooth replacement like is seen in sharks. There isn't much known about these guys because not much of their skeletons survived to the present day, but we're learning what we can from them. 

We know that they're a vegetarian from their teeth, despite the saber-teeth and their rows of teeth, and they looked a lot like a very large lizard despite being a mammal. We think that their teeth were for protection and possibly mating rituals, since they don't hunt, and that it was the start of what we can see now with some species of deer. 


This picture of them is from both the National Geographic and from Live Science. It's an approximation of what they might have looked like, in part. You can see the saber teeth, and why I don't know what to compare it too. 

This one is from Royal Society Publishing, and shows about how much evidence we've really got of these guys and why we don't know a lot. 

The proof of this creature has been found in South America and South Africa, and they think that it was among the first dinosaurs that managed to have teeth that fit together to grind plant matter to eat. They were also surprising because of the number of teeth they have even on the roof of their mouths. Imagine having teeth above your tongue, that sounds like it would get painful quick. 

Again, not a lot is known about these guys because they're so old that not much survived to now. They were discovered less than 20 years ago, so we're still working on learning much of anything about them. The sources below have what I found, if you want to try to find more, or google is awesome for these things. Either way, have fun and I hope you're as surprised by this creature as I, and many others, have been. 


Sources:

National Geographic--Tiarajudens

National Geographic--Odd Saber Toothed Beast

Live Science-- Odd Ancient Saber Toothed Beast

Everything Dinosaur--Tiarajudens Eccentricus

Dinosaur Facts for Kids--Tiarajudens Eccentricus

Royal Society--Picture only

Phys.Org-- Head Butting Saber Tooth Ancestor

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