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A Dimetrodon By Any Other Name

For more than 160 years, a segment of a jawbone with serrated, inches-long teeth has resided on a shelf at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University under one name: Bathygnathus borealis.

But like many of the millions of specimens at the Academy, this 270-million-year-old fossil still had a story to impart. And that story was that it was the fossil of a creature that has a little more name recognition.

Researchers from the University of Toronto Mississauga, Carleton University and the Royal Ontario Museum, led by Kirstin Brink, PhD, used the Academyโ€™s fossil specimen to determine that Bathygnathus borealis was not actually a unique species but instead belongs to the genus Dimetrodon, a โ€œmammal-like reptileโ€ that lived 40 million years before the first dinosaurs.

โ€œBy scanning the fossil, they were able to zero in on unique features of this specimen that weโ€™ve suspected for a long time,โ€ explainedย Ted Daeschler, PhD, the Academyโ€™s vice president for collections and one of the guardians of the extensive fossil collection. โ€œThe images they were able to develop allowed them to say โ€˜This is a pelycosaur, specificallyย Dimetrodon.โ€™โ€

The Canadian teamโ€™s discovery was published in the Nov. 23 issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Science.

Featured in (albeit crudely) ย the 1959 movie โ€œJourney to the Center of the Earthโ€ and many childrenโ€™s toys, Dimetrodon was a four-legged animal that had a spiny โ€œsailโ€ of skin stretching from the back of its neck to its tail area.

One of the animalโ€™s key features, which is on display in the Academyโ€™s fossil, is serrated, inches-long teeth meant for ripping flesh. Dimetrodon is believed to be the first land-based animal to sport these โ€œziphodontโ€ teeth.

When the fossil was taken to Canada with the researchers last year, it was something of a homecoming. The jaw was initially discovered in Canada on Prince Edward Island in 1845. A farmer named McLeod was digging a new well when the fossil was discovered nine feet down nestled in red sandstone.

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