Varanosaur

[dinodigger]

Lovely Varanosaur femur from our dig site this weekend. Seems to be a ton of varanosaurs living in one area. Have come across numerous femora and humeri. Cute little guy. Kind of the Permian ankle biter with sharp teeth. Nasty little scavenger feeding off the corpses of decaying dimetrodons.

[FossilDudeCO]

Nice find!!

Why do you think you ended up with so many in one place?

[Max-fossils]

Indeed lovely!!! Great find!

 

But one thing surprises me though: you say it's from Varanosaurus. Don't you mean Varanops or Varanodon? Because as far as I know, those two, though closely related to Varanosaurus, are a lot more common than Varanosaurus, of which only a few partial remains have been found. So either you made a small silly mistake, or this find is a lot more rare and important that what it seems!!!

 

Anyways in either case an amazing find!

 

Best regards,

 

Max

[dinodigger]

On 1/4/2017 at 3:30 AM, Max-fossils said:

Indeed lovely!!! Great find!

 

But one thing surprises me though: you say it's from Varanosaurus. Don't you mean Varanops or Varanodon? Because as far as I know, those two, though closely related to Varanosaurus, are a lot more common than Varanosaurus, of which only a few partial remains have been found. So either you made a small silly mistake, or this find is a lot more rare and important that what it seems!!!

 

Anyways in either case an amazing find!

 

Best regards,

 

Max

Hey Max,

 

We do have an abundance of Varanosaurus here- surprisingly it is one of the most common animals in the section we are studying. We don't see any Varanops material- need to go down section to see those. Cheers, Chris

[Max-fossils]

47 minutes ago, dinodigger said:

Hey Max,

 

We do have an abundance of Varanosaurus here- surprisingly it is one of the most common animals in the section we are studying. We don't see any Varanops material- need to go down section to see those. Cheers, Chris

Wow, well that's pretty lucky! Congrats again on all the finds!

[Plantguy]

Hey Chris, enjoyed seeing this little guy and the posts. Appreciate hearing about updates. I am curious to know if the preservation there at that site would allow to you see any direct evidence of the reverse where Dimetrodon may have had a Varanosaurus meal? 

 

Regards, Chris 

[dinodigger]

On 1/8/2017 at 8:50 AM, Plantguy said:

Hey Chris, enjoyed seeing this little guy and the posts. Appreciate hearing about updates. I am curious to know if the preservation there at that site would allow to you see any direct evidence of the reverse where Dimetrodon may have had a Varanosaurus meal? 

 

Regards, Chris 

Hey man, so funny you ask- one of my volunteers found a fabulous distal end of a varanosaur in which it had been gnawed fantastically. The cortical bone was all dissolved away as well suggesting it had been digested rather nicely. So yes- great great evidence of a heavily chewed v-saur femur.

[Plantguy]

On 1/9/2017 at 10:04 PM, dinodigger said:

Hey man, so funny you ask- one of my volunteers found a fabulous distal end of a varanosaur in which it had been gnawed fantastically. The cortical bone was all dissolved away as well suggesting it had been digested rather nicely. So yes- great great evidence of a heavily chewed v-saur femur.

Awesome--what a fascinating site to be digging in--thanks for the answer Chris.