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The first reptile walking "standing"

This reptile, recently announced to the world, although it was discovered in 2003 (also paleontologists, like fossils, have geological time, apparently), whose scientific name is Bunostegos akokanensis, is perhaps the first of its kind in able to move like the great modern mammals or dinosaurs of later eras.
He looked massive and grotesque, with protrusions on the body and the size of a cow, and lived about 260 million years ago in the supercontinent of Pangea, where today is the current Niger.
The discovery is of great importance, because until then the reptiles had a posture similar to current lizards or crocodiles, that is, with legs protruding laterally from the body, which bordered on the ground.
The new posture more upright gait gave the animal, allowing him to move more quickly and easily than its mass. The discovery of fossil remains (in 2003) is the palentologo Morgan Turner, who has only recently published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleonology the results of its study on the joints of the bones, from which he deduced the posture of the animal.
"It's possible that the B. akokanensis was not the only one to move that way, but we have not yet found evidence in other species," says Turner, who points out, however, as the complexity of the posture of this Pareiasauro face speculate that in the future you may find other less evolved species of B. akokanensis, but already with an upright posture or semi-erect.
The Bunostegos, as most of the animals of the Lower Permian, disappeared during the mass extinction that occurred between the Permian and the Triassic, about 250 million years ago. The causes of quell'estinzione are unclear (see article on this website): perhaps were profound climate change linked to major volcanic eruptions, or the fall of a large asteroid. But we know that disappeared 95% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, including Bunostegos.


Other species of the family of pareiasaur, which also includes

the B. akokanensis. Unlike the latter, however, they have "side legs".

  an article by Cristiano Cascioli

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