Estemmenosuchus was a therapsid that existed in the Late Permian Period around 255 million years ago.
P. K. Chudinov named it in 1960 after discovering it in the middle of the twentieth century in Russia.
This animal’s name means “crowned crocodile” in Greek.
Don’t condemn this species based on some of the Estemmenosuchus images available on the internet nowadays.
That’s because the majority of them make these creatures seem like wild hippopotamuses with intricate head crests.
This might make it appear rather frightening. However, it was probably not all that frightening in real life. It looked more like a contemporary cow.
Estemmenosuchus was around 13 feet tall and weighed 500 pounds. Its physique was remarkably similar to that of a cow, except that its legs were shorter.
Its head was covered with a variety of bone knots, which were most likely utilized to protect itself from predators rather than as a weapon. While this animal has strong forward-pointing teeth, they were most likely utilized to devour plant material like cycads and conifers.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Estemmenosuchus is that its huge body is generally suggestive of a herbivore’s digestive tract.
Herbivores, such as cows, often have bigger bodies to accommodate all of the digestive plumbing required to adequately digest the plant food. As a result, experts assume it subsisted mostly on plants. Although scientists haven’t ruled out the possibility that it ate flesh on occasion.
Its leg position shows that it was a herbivore as well. Its rear legs are right over its hips. This shows that it walked a lot, as having the legs in this configuration would have provided effective movement.
Its front legs, on the other hand, were spread farther to the sides. This would make it easier for it to push the front section of its body down to ingest grasses and other plant materials.
In other words, it appears that Estemmenosuchus’s physiology was more suited to consuming plants than animals.
