Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various extinct, chiefly carnivorous synapsids of the Carboniferous and Permian Periods, including the dimetrodon and other species with saillike structures along the back.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A large primitive reptile having a tall spinal sail; of the Permian or late Paleozoic in Europe and North America.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun large primitive reptile having a tall spinal sail; of the Permian or late Paleozoic in Europe and North America
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Fossil fish in Romer Hall (with a specimen of the pelycosaur Edaphosaurus on the right).
Howard Hughes Wanders Out Among the Artifacts nineweaving 2010
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I was under the impression that “therapsid” always referred to a kind of synapsid reptile and was distinct from “pelycosaur” another kind of synapsid think dimetrodon.
Controversies in Evolution: 'Jurassic beaver' unearthed in China - The Panda's Thumb 2006
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I had no sooner spoken than I remembered the pelycosaur we had seen in the jungle.
The Shadow of the Torturer Wolfe, Gene 1980
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The last "pelycosaur": a varanopid synapsid from the Pristerognathus Assemblage Zone, Middle Permian of South Africa Naturwissenschaften, 98 12, 1027-1034 DOI:
Wired Top Stories Brian Switek 2012
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2. Which of these were not dinosaurs: the pelycosaur Dimetrodon, the winged pterosaurs, and the aquatic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs.
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2. Which of these were not dinosaurs: the pelycosaur Dimetrodon, the winged pterosaurs, and the aquatic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs.
Archive 2008-11-01 2008
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From my readings on The Ancestor’s Tale and elsewhere, it looks like the primate/mammal split occurred 70 million years ago, which is before the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, and the split between the dinos and the lines that would become mammals and marsupials Dimetrodon, though it looked like a dinosaur, was a pelycosaur on our branch, not theirs occurred before dinosaurs actually walked the earth.
A signature of a radiation in metazoan evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2005
chained_bear commented on the word pelycosaur
"Caseasauria refers to a pelycosaur side-branch or clade that did not leave any descendants." (Wikipedia)
September 4, 2008