DALLAS, Texas — One of the first big land predators on Earth was roughly the size of a small crocodile. This Dimetrodon (Dih-MEH-truh-don) lived about 280 million years ago — some 50 million years before dinosaurs appeared. And although scientists had a good idea what it looked like, they only now know what fueled it. Rather than dining on plant eaters, the reptilian carnivore ate mainly aquatic animals. Indeed, it probably chowed down on sharks and amphibians like a prehistoric Pac-Man.
Robert Bakker described the dining habits of this snub-nosed, sharp-toothed creature that wore a towering fin on its back. He reported his team’s findings October 14, here, at the annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology. A paleontologist, Bakker works in Texas at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
