Our ancient apex predator relative, The largest gorgonopsid, Inostrancevia

During the middle and late Permian, a time of heavy competition and synpsid predators boasting 4 legs and saber like canines established dominance. These saber-toothed beasts were our ancient relatives, and eventually earned the name gorgonopsids, in reference to the Gorgons of Greek mythology. Among them was the inostrancevia, the largest gorgonopsid ever discovered

[@veronicalouverdis5535]

Great video! I'm doing a synapsid art project and drawing Inostrancevia next (a furred version), loved learning about this animal through your content.

[@VinceRoop-sj8fp]

As always; for the algorithm gods!

[@11Legorex]

Cool glad to find a new paleo channel at the very beginning of its career!

[@floflo1645]

good sound, good editing AND good narration on a channel with a few hundreds subscribers
keep the good work 👍

[@naseemdhaouadi2132]

Severely underrated channel

[@UlfOrGrimnir]

Hell yeah!!! Beautifully done.

[@OSCARINGLOBIN]

Great content, keep going dude, youre awsome

[@miloofamanben]

I love it when people do animals like this it’s nice to change things up!😊

[@pigeonhawk4832]

Wonder what they would have evolved into, if they never went extinct. Perhaps another line of mammals? Similar yet somehow different than the ones that came from the Cynodonts. Perhaps not too different though. They are still closer to Cynodonts and "true mammals" than they are to any reptiles.

[@eybaza6018]

If they never went extinct they would have probably kept diversyfying and increasing in size, as well as optimizing their anatomy for better running and hunting over time.

[@pigeonhawk4832]

@@eybaza6018 I suspect they would have evolved more and more mammalian traits, as Cynodonts did, ( they are what ultimately evolved into mammals, as we think of mammals).
Hard to say what they would have evolved into, evolution can take so many paths but their descendent, if they survived into the present, would be far more mammalian, than anything reptilian, my Educated Guess is they would be a clade of parallel mammals, parallel to the Cynodont line of mammals.

[@eybaza6018]

@@pigeonhawk4832 They could have evolved adaptations that never evolved in Cynodonts or developmed Cynodont/Therocephalian-like convergent developments even further than they did.

[@pigeonhawk4832]

@@eybaza6018 Could very well have, as they were pretty powerful apex predators.
It's a very cool thought experiment though.

[@pigeonhawk4832]

Any evidence of how they reproduced? Would they have laid eggs or had some form of live birth?

[@eybaza6018]

Laying eggs,live birth only evolved in some mammals far later on.

[@pigeonhawk4832]

@@eybaza6018 yeah, probably most likely. And I'm figuring they would have provided parental care. I'm only guessing, but perhaps the brooded eggs in a brood pouch, as contemporary monotremes do.
Too bad that we cannot tell from the fossil record.

[@eybaza6018]

@@pigeonhawk4832 We can. We've found Synapsids like the Dicynodont Diictodon or the Cynodont Thrinaxodon huddled in fossilized burrows with a number of young and sometimes eggs. Live birth is also associated with the loss of epipubic bones and the widening of the pelvis in females wich no pre-mammal Synapsids show, even then many prehistoric mammals and even today's Monotremes still laid eggs.

[@pigeonhawk4832]

Did it have whiskers ?

[@danteabaddon]

It shouldn't, that's an ancestor of the mammals before they have furr

[@pigeonhawk4832]

But they are very mammal like in the skull, teeth, and upright posture, it's possible they had other mammalian characteristics such as the beginning of fur or hair structures. Mammals inherited their teeth structure and arrangement, basic skull structure from early therapsids .

[@danteabaddon]

@@pigeonhawk4832 Maybe, I always thought that furr appeared outside Gorgonopsia or even after.

[@pigeonhawk4832]

If it was not covered in a pelt of some sort, it most likely had the skin of hairless mammals, such as say a rhinoceros, elephant or wart hog, thick,, glandular, wrinkled skin, not the pebbled or scaly skin of reptiles Maybe had a few whiskers and perhaps tufts of hair on the head and back, as a protection from intense sun.
Some skin impressions and fossilized parts of the skin itself of other therapsids , Estemminosuchus and dicynodonts was in fact like that of hairless mammals. The skin impressions and fossilized remains of the Estemminosuchus was said to reassemble that of aquatic mammals, such as a Hippopotamus or Manatee.

[@tristanwilliams4180]

i Wonder if he had Competition with Dimetrodon?

[@bassmantjox1299]

No, Dimetrodon was already extinct when gorgonopsids existed

[@ZP1993]

No,they didn't exist at the same time. Dimetrodon lived in the early Permian,while gorgonopsids lived in the late Permian.

[@EdnaBaptist]

Lisa simpson the lizard king.

[@Sedimented.Studios]

i am not lisa simpson :(