Anteosaurus
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Anteosaurus
''Anteosaurus'' (meaning "Antaeus lizard") is an extinct genus of large carnivorous dinocephalian synapsid. It lived at the end of the Guadalupian (= Middle Permian) during the Capitanian age, about 265 to 260 million years ago in what is now South Africa. It is mainly known by cranial remains and few postcranial bones. Measuring long and weighing about , ''Anteosaurus'' was the largest known carnivorous non-mammalian synapsid and the largest terrestrial predator of the Permian period. Occupying the top of the food chain in the Middle Permian, its skull, jaws and teeth show adaptations to capture large prey like the giants titanosuchids and tapinocephalids dinocephalians and large pareiasaurs. As in many other dinocephalians the cranial bones of ''Anteosaurus'' are pachyostosed, but to a lesser extent than in tapinocephalid dinocephalians. In ''Anteosaurus'', pachyostosis mainly occurs in the form of horn-shaped supraorbital protuberances. According to some paleontologists t ...
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Capitanian
In the geologic timescale, the Capitanian is an age or stage of the Permian. It is also the uppermost or latest of three subdivisions of the Guadalupian Epoch or Series. The Capitanian lasted between and million years ago. It was preceded by the Wordian and followed by the Wuchiapingian.; 2004: ''A Geologic Time Scale 2004'', Cambridge University Press A significant mass extinction event occurred at the end of this stage, which was associated with anoxia and acidification in the oceans and possibly caused by the volcanic eruptions that produced the Emeishan Traps. This extinction event may be related to the much larger Permian–Triassic extinction event that followed about 10 million years later. Stratigraphy The Capitanian Stage was introduced into scientific literature by George Burr Richardson in 1904. The name comes from the Capitan Reef in the Guadalupe Mountains (Texas, United States). The Capitanian was first used as a stratigraphic subdivision of the Guadal ...
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Agonistic Behaviour
Agonistic behaviour is any social behaviour related to fighting. The term has broader meaning than aggressive behaviour because it includes threats, displays, retreats, placation, and conciliation. The term "agonistic behaviour" was first implemented by J.P Scott and Emil Fredericson in 1951 in their paper "The Causes of Fighting in Mice and Rats" in ''Physiological Zoology.'' Agonistic behaviour is seen in many animal species because resources including food, shelter, and mates are often limited. Some forms of agonistic behaviour are between contestants who are competing for access to the same resources, such as food or mates. Other times, it involves tests of strength or threat display that make animals look large and more physically fit, a display that may allow it to gain the resource before an actual battle takes place. Although agonistic behaviour varies among species, agonistic interaction consists of three kinds of behaviours: threat, aggression, and submission. These thre ...
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Postorbital Bone
The ''postorbital'' is one of the bones in vertebrate skulls which forms a portion of the dermal skull roof and, sometimes, a ring about the orbit. Generally, it is located behind the postfrontal and posteriorly to the orbital fenestra. In some vertebrates, the postorbital is fused with the postfrontal to create a postorbitofrontal. Birds have a separate postorbital as an embryo An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm ..., but the bone fuses with the frontal before it hatches. References * Roemer, A. S. 1956. ''Osteology of the Reptiles''. University of Chicago Press. 772 pp. Skull {{Vertebrate anatomy-stub ...
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Jugal Bone
The jugal is a skull bone found in most reptiles, amphibians and birds. In mammals, the jugal is often called the malar or zygomatic. It is connected to the quadratojugal and maxilla, as well as other bones, which may vary by species. Anatomy The jugal bone is located on either side of the skull in the circumorbital region. It is the origin of several masticatory muscles in the skull. The jugal and lacrimal bones are the only two remaining from the ancestral circumorbital series: the prefrontal, postfrontal, postorbital, jugal, and lacrimal bones. During development, the jugal bone originates from dermal bone. In dinosaurs This bone is considered key in the determination of general traits in cases in which the entire skull has not been found intact (for instance, as with dinosaurs in paleontology). In some dinosaur genera the jugal also forms part of the lower margin of either the antorbital fenestra or the infratemporal fenestra, or both. Most commonly, this bone art ...
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Angular Bone
The angular is a large bone in the lower jaw (mandible) of amphibians and reptiles (birds included), which is connected to all other lower jaw bones: the dentary (which is the entire lower jaw in mammals), the splenial, the suprangular, and the articular. It is homologous to the tympanic bone in mammals, due to the incorporation of several jaw bones into the mammalian middle ear early in mammal evolution. In therapsids (mammal ancestors and their kin), the lower jaw is made up of the dentary (the mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bon ... in mammals) and a group of smaller "postdentary" bones near the jaw joint. As the dentary increased in size over million of years, two of these postdentary bones, the articular and angular, became increasingly reduced and t ...
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Pachyostosis
Pachyostosis is a non-pathological condition in vertebrate animals in which the bones experience a thickening, generally caused by extra layers of lamellar bone. It often occurs together with bone densification (osteosclerosis), reducing inner cavities. This joint occurrence is called pachyosteosclerosis. However, especially in the older literature, "pachyostosis" is often used loosely, referring to all osseous specializations characterized by an increase in bone compactness and/or volume. It occurs in both terrestrial and, especially, aquatic or semi-aquatic vertebrates. In aquatic animals, such as seacows (manatees and dugongs), ''Thalassocnus'', and plesiosaurs, pachyostosis in the thoracic region provides (or provided) ballast against the air-filled lungs. This maintains neutral buoyancy in aquatic habitats. Most giant deer showed pronounced pachyostosis of the mandible and skull. It has been suggested that this served to store minerals for antler growth. Many Pachycephalo ...
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Skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, these two parts are the neurocranium and the viscerocranium ( facial skeleton) that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior-most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In humans these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton. Functions of the skull include protection of the brain, fixing the distance between the eyes to allow stereoscopic vision, and fixing the position of the ears to enable sound localisation of the direction and distance of sounds. In some animals, such as horned ungulates (mammals with hooves), the skull also has a defensive function by providing the mount (on the ...
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Anteosaurid
Anteosauridae is an extinct family of large carnivorous dinocephalian therapsids that are known from the Middle Permian of Asia, Africa, and South America.These animals were by far the largest predators of the Permian period, with skulls reaching 80 cm in length in adult individuals, far larger than the biggest gorgonopsian. Description Anteosaurids are characterized by very large pointed incisors and canines, bulbous spatulate (spoon shaped) postcanines, a very strongly upturned margin of the premaxilla, so the front of mouth curves strongly upwards, and a long, very robust lower jaw (Boonstra 1963). Anteosaurids distinguished from ''Brithopus'' and other non-anteosaurid anteosaurians by the presence of a large thickened region or "boss" on the side of the angle of the lower jaw; this was probably used in intraspecific behaviour. In ''Doliosauriscus'' and '' Anteosaurus'', not only was this boss very prominent, but the bones were very thick and rugose. The same situat ...
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Anteosaurus Size
''Anteosaurus'' (meaning " Antaeus reptile") is an extinct genus of large carnivorous dinocephalian synapsid. It lived at the end of the Guadalupian (= Middle Permian) during the Capitanian stage, about 265 to 260 million years ago in what is now South Africa. It is mainly known by cranial remains and few postcranial bones. With its skull reaching in length and a body size estimated at more than in length, and in weight, ''Anteosaurus'' was the largest known carnivorous non-mammalian synapsid and the largest terrestrial predator of the Permian period. Occupying the top of the food chain in the Middle Permian, its skull, jaws and teeth show adaptations to capture large prey like the giants titanosuchids and tapinocephalids dinocephalians and large pareiasaurs. As in many other dinocephalians the cranial bones of ''Anteosaurus'' are pachyostosed, but to a lesser extent than in tapinocephalid dinocephalians. In ''Anteosaurus'', pachyostosis mainly occurs in the form of ho ...
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Titans
In Greek mythology, the Titans ( grc, οἱ Τῑτᾶνες, ''hoi Tītânes'', , ''ho Tītân'') were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the ''Theogony'' of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans—Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus—and six female Titans, called the Titanides or "Titanesses" (, ''hai Tītānídes'')— Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys. Cronus mated with his older sister Rhea, who then bore the first generation of Olympians: the six siblings Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. Certain descendants of the Titans, such as Prometheus, Helios, and Leto, are sometimes also called Titans. The Titans were the former gods: the generation of gods preceding the Olympians. They were overthrown as part of the Greek succession myth, which tells how Cronus seized power from his father Uranus and ruled the cosmos with his fellow Titans bef ...
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Giants (Greek Mythology)
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Giants, also called Gigantes (Greek: Γίγαντες, ''Gígantes'', Γίγας, ''Gígas''), were a race of great strength and aggression, though not necessarily of great size. They were known for the Gigantomachy (or Gigantomachia), their battle with the Olympian gods. According to Hesiod, the Giants were the offspring of Gaia (Earth), born from the blood that fell when Uranus (Sky) was castrated by his Titan son Cronus. Archaic and Classical representations show Gigantes as man-sized hoplites (heavily armed ancient Greek foot soldiers) fully human in form. Later representations (after c. 380 BC) show Gigantes with snakes for legs. In later traditions, the Giants were often confused with other opponents of the Olympians, particularly the Titans, an earlier generation of large and powerful children of Gaia and Uranus. The vanquished Giants were said to be buried under volcanoes and to be the cause of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Or ...
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Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four ...
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