Talk:Thrinaxodon

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Cannablism[edit]

In Walking with Dinosaurs it was shown eating its own young..

Well since it's a movie they can show it doing whatever they want it to. 2601:644:2:B64B:A058:740A:4B5B:2EEA (talk) 05:55, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Curling[edit]

I once read a book that showed a thrinaxodon fossil that had been found curled up like a sleeping cat or dog. The book cited this as further evidence that they were warm-blooded. I'll have to track that reference down if I can... it's been years! --Iustinus (talk) 19:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whiskers?[edit]

Pits on the skull indicate that Thrinaxodon had whiskers and, therefore probably also had a covering of fur.

I don't recall this being definite. I thought it was determined that the pits could also have been muscle attachment points? Contributions/97.104.210.67 (talk) 19:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Andreas Sweden: Yeah I agree. This is not scientific. Perhaps it gives the correct idea of what the scientist say about this fossil. But this category of science of palentology is very mutch made up of wishful thinkin. One quick glance at that fossil, and You can see that the animal is more liklely to be a dinosaur, than a half dinosaur half hound/mamal/lizard. I want to see clear evidence before bold statements like the cited one above are made, otherwise it's just psuedo science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.82.118.217 (talk) 19:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In any case it's not a dinosaur, and has never ever been thought of as such. FunkMonk (talk) 20:41, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No one is saying it is a dinosaur, but the question remains...? 97.104.210.67 (talk) 23:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, "Andreas Sweden" thinks that it is a dinosaur (see above) but is unlikely to be an authority on the matter! The taxon that a fossil animal belongs to is decided by particular aspects of its skeletal conformation (pelvis, teeth, skull bones etc.) and its evolutionary affinities are shown by these rather than superficial impressions - otherwise we might delude ourselves that icthyosaurs, sharks and dolphins were close relatives. Thrinaxodon belongs to a group that is known to have had hair in two ancient clades (monotremes and placentals) so the common ancestor of these would have been hairy - it's just not clear how far back in the lineage the characteristic goes, in particular whether it goes back far enough to include Thrinaxodon. The "whisker base" features in Thrinaxodon are at least consistent with the possibility that it had fur, though this is not (apparently) the only possible explanation for these structures.Orbitalforam (talk) 14:42, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The current text is Pits on the skull suggest that Thrinaxodon may have had whiskers, but whether it also had fur is debated. That's an improvement, but the word "but" suggests a contrast between the two clauses. As both the presence of whiskers and that of fur are debated, there is no contrast. How about:

Pits on the skull have suggested to some that Thrinaxodon had whiskers, though other explanations have been offered. If it did have whiskers, it may have had fur as well.

Peter M. Brown (talk) 14:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article on Mammals mentions that modern tegu skulls have similar foramina, so they are not strong evidence for whiskers. Might be worth mentioning in the article. 2601:644:2:B64B:A058:740A:4B5B:2EEA (talk) 05:51, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

update the name ?[edit]

If the grammatically-correct Greek name "should" be Thrinacodon; then why not correct the name, and relegate the incorrect form Thrinaxodon to some form of footnote, e.g. "older texts may refer to these fossils as Thrinaxodon" ? C.p. Tetraceratops fossils, once fully excavated from the surrounding rock matrix, revealed two more horns; why not rename the species, correctly, as Hexaceratops, with some form of footnote, "older texts may..." ? What is the point of persisting known errors ? 66.235.38.214 (talk) 07:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware, the name was never changed, so we can't change it either. FunkMonk (talk) 09:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tetrapods?[edit]

I'm confused by this statement: '...Thrinaxodon adopted a semi-sprawling posture, an intermediary form between the sprawling position of tetrapods (like modern Crocodilia) and the more upright posture present in current mammals.' In fact, mammals, and birds, and reptiles are all tetrapods. I'm not a naturalist of any sort, which is why I'm not making a change, but the statement seems flat wrong. RobotBoy66 (talk) 13:38, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]