Tritylodon
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Tritylodon Temporal range: Early Jurassic |
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| Tritylodon longaevus | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | Therapsida |
| Suborder: | Cynodontia |
| Family: | †Tritylodontidae |
| Genus: | †Tritylodon |
| Type species | |
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Tritylodon longaevus Owen, 1884 |
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| Species | |
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Tritylodon (Greek for 3 cusped tooth) was a genus of tritylodont, one of the most advanced group of cynodont therapsids. They lived in the Early Jurassic and possibly Late Triassic periods along with dinosaurs. They also shared a lot of characteristics with mammals, and were once considered mammals because of overall skeleton construction. That was changed due to them retaining the vestigial reptilian jawbones and a different skull structure. Tritylodons are now regarded as non-mammalian synapsids.
If a living Tritylodon were to be seen today, it would look a lot like a large rodent. They were about 30 centimetres (12 in) long but there is no certainty about the exact weight. Their method of chewing food, a grinding motion with the bottom teeth sliding against the top teeth, resembled that of rodents as well. The bottom teeth were much like a set of cusps and the top teeth were a set of matching grooves that matched perfectly allowing this motion. There were large incisors at the very front of their mouth separated by a gap from the rest of the teeth. The incisors would stick out and remain slightly visible when the mouth was closed. The legs were directly beneath the body like mammals, unlike the earlier therapsids with sprawling limbs.
These animals were burrowers; the structure of the shoulder, front limbs, and large front incisors show this. They used their incisors to help dig and unearth buried plants. The way they ate and the shape of their teeth demonstrate that Tritylodons were probably primarily herbivorous (though some tritylodontids show evidence of more omnivorous diets, and modern analogues like rodents tend to be more omnivorous than their dentitions lead on). Any of the Tritylodonts including Tritylodon were warm-blooded or endothermic. Like most non-placental mammalimorphs, it had epipubic bones, aiding in its erect gait but preventing the expansion of the abdomen, making it unable to go through prolonged pregnancy and instead give birth to larval young like modern marsupials and monotremes.
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