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Subject: Re: Late stone ago discovery of dicynodont
Date: Wed, 7 May 2025 06:34:23 -0700
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On 5/5/25 13:21, erik simpson wrote:
> The "late stone age turns out to be at 1821-1835.  If we adopt the 
> attitude that the San people of South Africa were at the time living in 
> the stone age.  But it's an intriguing story.
> 
> "A possible later stone age painting of a dicynodont (Synapsida) from 
> the South African Karoo"
> 
> Abstract
> 
> The Horned Serpent panel at La Belle France (Free State Province, South 
> Africa) was painted by the San at least two hundred years ago. It 
> pictures, among many other elements, a tusked animal with a head that 
> resembles that of a dicynodont, the fossils of which are abundant and 
> conspicuous in the Karoo Basin. This picture also seemingly relates to a 
> local San myth about large animals that once roamed southern Africa and 
> are now extinct. This suggests the existence of a San geomyth about 
> dicynodonts. Here, the La Belle France site has been visited, the 
> existence of the painted tusked animal is confirmed, and the presence of 
> tetrapod fossils in its immediate vicinity is supported. Altogether, 
> they suggest a case of indigenous palaeontology. The painting is dated 
> between 1821 and 1835, or older, making it at least ten years older than 
> the formal scientific description of the first dicynodont, Dicynodon 
> lacerticeps, in 1845. The painting of a dicynodont by the San would also 
> suggest that they integrated (at least some) fossils into their belief 
> system.
> 
> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0309908

So do we know what dicynodonts looked like?  What we often 'see' might 
be something like modified 'scales' or 'hair' or 'whiskers'.

Some had hair?  All had hair?  None had hair?  What we would know of as
'hair' only came into existence in the Triassic?  Are there any 
non-extinct amphibians that have scales that might be similar to 'hair' in
some ways?