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I recently attended the PermianFest event at the Whiteside museum in Seymour Texas. Along with several days of great speakers, they also offered dig workshops at one of their Permian redbed sites. I absolutely couldn't make the trip without getting in on a dig! I only went for a single day in the field, I wish it could have been for 5, it was so great. We were digging in the Craddock bonebed, a location where many museum specimens of Dimetrodon, and many other Permian fauna have been recovered. It was a special treat to be working a quarry site in the footsteps of Cope, Sternberg, Bakker and more. The shear amount of fossil material is staggering. I thought that the PaleoAdventures Hell creek site was dense, this was packed even more. We started with surface collecting. Just plop down on a bit of ground and start looking. Ddon, Eryops, Orthocanthus and more species of bone bits everywhere. Everything I collected on the surface was in an area about 2ft x 2ft. After getting our eyes tuned in on the shapes, sizes, and colors of the fossils, we moved into the quarry to begin working back the quarry face. I am convinced that we were exposing a new Dimetrodon skeleton. I was uncovering ribs, verts and sail-spines, the people to my right were finding cervical verts, and the man to my left was finding verts, spines and an ilium. It was a great dig, I wish it wasn't almost 5 hour drive each way for me.

There is a tiny town in Texas called Seymour. It has two stoplights. It's tiny. But there is a museum there - the Whiteside Museum of Natural History which is primarily dedicated to Permian Era fossils because there are the famous Red Beds very nearby, of which this museum has access to. So they put together the inaugural Permian Fest held last weekend. Not only did they have digs and auctions and fancy fund-raising dinner, but some of the best paleontologists from around the US gave presentations. I got to meet Carl Mehling, Jimmy Waldron and the infamous Dr Robert Bakker as well as some other amazing people! There were book signings, a bake sale (got a blueberry pie!), paleontological origami and of course...vendors! I had my little set up (8 tables worth!!) of tshirts, artwork, fossil art and more. It was quite the weekend. But of course, I did a little fossil hunting on the way up and back! Permian Fest: Me and Dr. Robert Bakker (my mom worked at the Peabody Museum at Yale when I was in utero and she worked with Dr .Bakkers first wife - so I "sort of" met him a long time ago....hahahah) a few of the displays from the Whiteside: My favorite! The Diplocaulus! My second favorite - Edaphosaurus and of course, a Dimetrodon So I found myself a couple of Permian roadcuts to check out - none are vertebrate sites, all were marine invertebrates, but I had not collected any marine Permian stuff, so I was happy to add it to my collection. An interesting bryozoan cluster corals and crinoids I'm assuming this is Lophophylidium coral. I am not at all familiar with Permian stuff and am assuming that much of this is the same as the Texas Pennsylvanian fauna A few other nice things: Brachiopod Crinoid I'm always happy when I find some Echinoid stuff . another brachiopod One of the roadcuts had amazing hash plates....full of bryozoans and such. But my final stop yielded my best fossil find....not Permian, but back to my familiar Cretaceous stomping grounds! My biggest and best preserved Leptosalenia mexicana from the Walnut Formation.

The Whiteside museum in Seymour Texas recently held their first ever "Permian Fest" event, part of which included 3 days of presentations by many guest lecturers. I was fortunate enough to have a seat literally, in front of Dr. Bakker. Since I was about 4 - 5 feet away from Dr. Bakker for the lecture, so I couldn't pass the opportunity to record it. I wish I could have recorded his presentation the day before, but the auditorium was packed with school kids and I didnt have a clear view of the presenters or the screen.

During the Summer, I had the fortune of driving near Seymour, TX and thus the opportunity to pay a visit to the WMNH. The WMNH is a small but unique museum in Northern Texas, specializing in the Early Permian fauna that lived nearby ~ 290 million years ago in the famous Texas "red beds." The land around Seymour was once an equatorial bayou, humid and inundated with rivers and lakes. In the rivers were lungfish like those that live today, various ray-finned fishes, and cartilaginous fish like the Xenacanth "sharks." Amphibians like Eryops, Seymouria, and Diplocaulus also spent much of their lives in the water, but were capable of venturing onto land. The most famous not-a-dinosaur Dimetrodon was the terrestrial apex predator, living among other stem-mammals like Edaphosaurus and Secodontosaurus. Early Dinosaurs and mammals were still tens of millions of years in the future. Most of these interesting animals are rarely found in museums, so the chance to see so many of them in one building was an uncommon privilege. Outside the building, a larger-than-life Dimetrodon stands watch over the murals. The building is also lined with large Ammonites. an Eryops tries to find some shade Inside, there are several life reconstructions of some of these animals, the first one being Dimetrodon The first of several Dimetrodon individuals, "Bonnie" The red matrix has been coated with a dark grey material to increase contrast with the bones. There is a partial Diplocaulus amphibian skull in its belly Something I hadn't known: Dimetrodon may have been venomous?? I look forward to the publication of the evidence A couple of large Eryops, their skulls were comparable in size to those of large Alligators Various skeletal elements 1. D. grandis femur, 2. Dimetrodon sp. femur, 3. Edaphosaurus pogonius tibia, 4. Dimetrodon sp. tibia, 5. Edaphosaurus pelvis, 6. Dimetrodon sp. pelvis, 7. Secodontosaurus pelvis Diadectes, a herbivorous tetrapod incisorform and molariform teeth indicate it was capable of stripping and masticating vegetation, a novel development among tetrapods of the time. It also had a secondary palate like we do, meaning it could chew and breathe simultaneously. Diplocaulus, the "boomerang-headed" amphibian Dimetrodon elements Neural spine with a pathology, a healed break possibly from the attack of another Dimetrodon Maxilla with a broken canine, proposed to be broken in life Pelvis with bite marks, possible evidence of cannibalism Another Dimetrodon Some plants

how adorable are these femora?! The longer of the two is a varanosaur and the other is a bit of a mystery. I suspect its a baby Secodontosaurus with the short shaft and immature ossification. Age is lower Permian.

We've got Bonnie, the Dimetrodon almost uncovered! Here is a recent TV news story about her! Channel 3 Wichita Falls News Story on Bonnie the Dimetrodon

290-Million-Year-Old Fossil Now in Seymour Museum By: Samaria Terry, June 30, 2017 http://www.texomashomepage.com/news/local-news/290-million-year-old-fossil-now-in-seymour-museum/755137806 The Whiteside Museum of Natural History (July 28, National Dimetrodon Day) http://www.whitesidemuseum.org Yours, Paul H.

Hey guys here's a shot of an adorable amphibian humerus I found while working on a jacket with some ddon bones. Always nice to find a surprise hidden in the block.

Hey gang here's an awesome secodontosaurus vertebra. These guys are awesome slender finbacks. Also known as the fox faced finback.

Hey gang here is a quick shot of a good day- finally getting Bonnie the Dimetrodon out of the quarry and into the museum. 8 months of digging and preparing for this big move. The weight is right at 6000 pounds. Next stage is getting her opened up and prepped. In the quarry we have 2 more skeletons to start on. Dang I love the Permian.

Hey gang just posting a quick shot of an absolute monster maxillary fang from a very big Dimetrodon. Quarry has been yielded some incredible material. Removing a 10k pound block this weekend with a very nice skeleton. Will have some photos soon.

Hey gang, here's a quick shot from the site- one of my team mates found this monster Dimetrodon maxillary fang. Needless to say it's the largest she's found and ranks up there with largest in the research collection. Beaitiful serrations and complete resorption pit. Would have been from a pretty healthy size Dimetrodon of 12 to 15 feet.

Hey gang Here's a quick shot of a monster dimetrodon radius we collected this weekend. Part of one of the big skeletons were working on. More pics soon.

Hey gang here's a great Ddon fin spine. just finished prepping. Had to remove a lot of caliche cemented to the outside. very young ddon.

Hey gang here is a glimpse of.one of the skeletons. Great articulation. back at it this morning.

Hey gang it's been so long since I've posted. I've been digging like crazy at my Permian sites all year. Have 4 very good articulated Dimetrodons as well as some other guys that are completely new. I added 2 pics- one of a great Ddon femur and the other an ulna. Enjoy! Back to digging in 7 hours or so...

Ok, so I've been doing some thinking about the Eryops site I found on my dig this past week with The Whiteside Museum in Seymour, Texas... I know... I'm obsessed... but I just can't help it! I keep thinking, “What is going on here?!?!?!" We have a red sandstone layer on top of the hillsides. Above that we are finding our favorite plant-eating reptile of the Permian the Edaphosaurus, which makes perfect sense because they preferred the banks of stream channels. Below the sandstone we are finding our shark teeth and shark spines. Now below that, have we possibly found a whole layer of Eryops??? Hmmm...... It's possible! We are finding Eryops teeth and bone fragments at about the same level below the sandstone on several of the hillsides. Now we have found a possible Eryops skeleton on a hillside at the same level we are finding the bone fragments and teeth on the other hillsides. So let's think about these primitive Permian amphibians a bit... These guys lived along stream channels. They had bulky bodies, so they were slow moving on land. In the water they had buoyancy to help them out, so they were most likely able to move a little faster there. Their flat skull with eyes and nostrils on top of their heads meant that they probably hunted like our modern crocs do today. They would float just below the surface of the water and wait for fish to swim by so he could snap them up. The Eryops had no chewing motion in their jaw structure so they would swallow prey whole. His palatal teeth helped hold onto his prey while he tossed it around to swallow it. The Eryops was also a p-r-e-t-t-y big guy for his time. He grew to be about 5' long and weighed close to 200 pounds, so that put him near the top of the Permian food chain. Remember... I said NEAR the top of the food chain. The Eryops would have been no match for the flesh eating Dimetrodon. We haven't seen any evidence of this happening at the site though. In fact we've seen almost no Dimetrodon at all, except for one small tooth. So that begs the question... What about in the water? Could the Eryops have been SHARK BAIT!?!?!? Not sure, but it's certainly possible... I've attached a picture of a piece of Eryops rib bone below that looks a bit suspicious. A fossil buddy of mine, TroyB who is a scale, sharklage, and coprolite fanatic thinks the bone could have bite marks on it. If you look closely at the picture there are some streaks that run through the bone that look like this Eryops could have had a run-in with a shark, but the jury is still out. We are not 100% convinced yet. We'll just have to wait and see what other evidence we can turn up. Chris Flis aka. Dinodigger, had a suggestion on what else it could be. I just can't remember what he said. Maybe he'll weigh-in and let us know. Another cool thing you'll notice about this rib bone is there's an Eryops tooth in the matrix around the rib! We have found OODLES of shed Eryops teeth while digging at this site. You'll also notice that this bone is fairly clean, which is exciting. Quite a bit of the bone we have been finding is coated in a bubbly matrix that we will have to carefully take off with the air scribe, which means LOTS more time and work. I've also included some pictures of the site before we found the Eryops skull and then one after we found the skull. We had to jacket the skull and tarp the site due to the coming rains. Yikes! Between the rain and the local Javelina residents it's been a little tricky protecting the site. Apparently the roots I left in the ground from all the cactus I dug up created a bit of a "Hog Heaven". Who would have thought that cactus root is a hog delicacy in the Texas Red Beds?!?! Duh! It's juicy and has no thorns! We learn something everyday folks! Anyway, there is some really interesting stuff going on here! I can't wait to get back and see what else we will find. I'll keep you posted! Best, Leigh