Extinct Creatures: Suminia

This week's extinct creature is a relative of ours! In the time before the dinosaurs, the world was ruled by "mammal-like reptiles", which are the creatures that existed between our more reptilian-ish ancestors and mammals proper. Using words like "reptile" is tough here, though, because it's not as though we evolved from lizards. Lizards are highly evolved in their own ways, and belong to an entirely separate group of tetrapods. I'll probably talk more about the different groups of tetrapods in a future post, because y'all will need some diagrams for that. Anyway, in this case, "reptile" just means any creature that lays an amniote egg (aka an egg with a shell)! That still includes humans, because we evolved from creatures that laid those eggs, and you can't "evolve out" of what your ancestors were.

Anyway, so this little guy is a "mammal-like reptile" that lived in the mid-Permian, which was the period of time before the Mesozoic. It was closer to us than Dimetrodon is, but still isn't a proper mammal. It was a small tree-climbing creature, shown here with a speculative nest for its eggies. I don't think we know if they nested or where-- it's possible they just laid their eggs on the ground and let the babies figure it out on their own. This is something we might never really know, since it's not like behaviors get fossilized very often (though it's not unheard of, as we have found fossils of creatures protecting their own nests, therefore showing that they cared for their offspring! Oviraptor is the best example. It was named "egg-taker" because it was found fossilized with a nest of eggs, and it was assumed the creature was stealing some other animal's eggies. Eventually, the eggs were found to be those of the Oviraptor itself, protecting its young so fiercely that it wouldn't leave them, even in death. So much for "egg-taker")

ANYWAY, I picked this creature solely because I could not wrap my head around the picture they decided to use on its Wikipedia page. WHAT IS THAT! Who Hellraised this Suminia!! Who took this Suminia down into a Heck dimension where it learned the pleasure of pain. Put some LIPS on this boy. Animals have lips. 

A lot of attention is paid to dino reconstructions and how they are naked and shrinkwrapped (when you just put skin right over a skeleton and pretend that's what a real animal might look like) a lot of the time, and just as much attention should be paid to the poor mammal-like reptiles. Hair is fairly speculative for a lot of the earlier mammal-like reptiles, but if you're gonna put hairs at all, at least commit and don't make these weird bristlehaired monsters. And put some meat on those skulls! And don't.... do whatever this person did with this thing's mouth.......

Then again, maybe I am in the wrong and the correct interpretation of Suminia is Chatterer the Hellraiser.