Fighting Gorgonops in Siberia, 250 MYA.
Gorgonops was a large, predatory Gorgonopsid of the Late Permian, living in the South African Karoo Basin, 252 Ma. It possessed the worlds first true sabre teeth, which it used to deadly effect on its prey, which included anything up to the size of giant Labyrinthodont Amphibians and Scutosaur Pareiasaurs (such as the old male Scutosaurus the female Gorgonopsid is shown to atttack)
It was the size of a tiger (lower size estimate) or a rhino (upper size estimate), up to 3.2-4.3 metres long, 500-700 kg in weight and tall enough to look you in the eye (if it was the upper size estimate 4.3 metres, not the lower size estimate 3.2 metres) It was a deadly carnivore - like all Gorgonopsids, being famed for their sabre-teeth. These evolved over 240 million years before the first sabre-toothed cats (circa. 20 Ma) and are an iconic and noteworthy example of clear-cut convergent evolution. In nature, "if it ain't broke", it will probably be a winning design that will continue to emerge repeatedly and distinctly throughout evolutionary history.
Trivia[]
- This is the first creature to appear in Primeval (the second one would be Rex and the third one would be the Scutosaurus)
Gorgonopsid as it appeared in Primeval.
- Walking With Monsters used Gorgonops for convenience, though the region of South Africa was far from the region of where Siberia was in the vast Pangaean Super-Continent.
- Inostrancevia was just as large and indeed somewhat larger than Gorgonops (and other South African species of Gorgonopsids such as Dinogorgon) and vies for the title of largest Gorgonopsid. It is thought the largest truly were up to 5 metres long.