We may often think of dinosaurs as the oldest of prehistoric predators. But a skull discovered in southern Brazil has challenged this notion, revealing that at least one giant prehistoric predator roamed the earth before the dinosaurs.
The predator in question is now called Pampaphoneus biccai. The skull the researchers found is about 36 cm tall and was found along with skeletal bones near São Gabriel in southern Brazil. Pampaphoneus is a large group of large and fearsome land-born animals that scientists call the early therapsid class dinocephalia.
This group of animals was not entirely composed of predators, but scientists say they mostly lived before the dinosaurs we know today, such as the Tyrannosaurus rex. Although the others were not carnivorous, the Pampaphoneus skull specimen found definitely indicates that it was a prehistoric giant predator.
“The animal had large, sharp canine teeth adapted for catching prey,” paleontologist Felipe Pinheiro from the Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA) in Brazil said in a statement. The structure of the skull suggests that the creature had a bite powerful enough to chew through bones, similar to modern-day hyenas that feed on meat and bones.
Pampaphoneus is estimated to have lived at the end of the Permian, just before the largest mass extinction event ever wiped out about 86 percent of all animal species on Earth. This extinction event is most commonly known as the “Great Dying” and caused the extinction of the vast majority of plant and animal forms.
Researchers aren’t sure what caused the mass extinction event that wiped out this giant prehistoric predator and its companions, mostly due to a lack of fossils to study. Perhaps these new discoveries can help us learn more about the Permian period and what brought it to an end.
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