Synapsid
Edaphosaurus
It ate plants, unlike its fellow sail-backed synapsid Dimetrodon.
Edaphosaurus had a dorsal sail and a mouth specialized for processing plants.
Three stages. One companion.
Game artwork
AI-generated, stylized game illustrations. These designs and growth stages are imaginative, not scientific reconstructions.
Edaphosaurus at a glance
- Diet
- Herbivore
- A plant-based diet is inferred from its anatomy and comparisons with related animals; not all herbivores ate the same plants.
- When it lived
- Carboniferous / Permian
- Group
- Edaphosauridae
- Edaphosaurids
- Fossil locations
- Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Germany
- Places where fossils have been found
Beyond the game
The real Edaphosaurus
It was one of the first large land vertebrates adapted to eating plants. It had dense clusters of teeth in its jaws, the "dental pavement" to which its name alludes.
It was herbivorous, unlike its dorsal sail relative Dimetrodon. The dense groupings of teeth gave rise to its name. Sharing a sail with Dimetrodon does not imply sharing a diet: both animals used different foods.
This grouping describes evolutionary relationships. Its members share ancestors; they do not form a chain in which one must turn into another.
Fossil discoveries
Selected fossil records · present-day map
Map references
Map: Natural Earth, public domain. Fossil records: linked collections and publications.Sources & text credits
Explore the references behind this profile.
- Edaphosaurus
Wikipedia contributors · Spanish source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Edaphosaurus
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Edaphosauridae
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- The mammalian lineage
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
Educational text adapted in English from the existing Wikipedia-backed Dinosgacha catalogue and linked articles by Wikipedia contributors.
Existing English translations have been selected and arranged for this encyclopedia. Repeated period and diet text is omitted where those fields already carry it. Unknown facts remain unfilled; unreviewed geological age phrases are omitted and period labels replace numerical ages.
The adapted educational text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. This text license does not apply to the game illustrations.