#sphenacodontia

[obscurefossils]

Milosaurus mccordi

Milosaurus was a genus of haptodontiform synapsid from the Late Carboniferous Period. Its type species is M. mccordi. Its known specimens were found in Jasper County, Illinois, USA. Milosaurus is one of the first amniotes to have a body mass above 20kg and is incredibly important in understanding the evolution of early synapsids.

Milosaurus mccordi is named for Mr. Milo Flynn and Mr. Chester McCord on whose property the fossils were found.

Its autapomorphies include mainly the odd morphology of the femur, which consists of an anteroposteriorly broad and slightly flattened anterior condyle, a uniquely cylindrical posterior condyle with a flattened distal surface, and an unusually prominent internal trochanter. Its fifth metatarsal also has a broad proximal end.

Milosaurus is known from its holotype and nearby referred fossils which consist of a pelvis, hind limb and pes, many caudual vertebrae, a lumbar vertebra, a lumbar or caudal neural spine, a presacral rib (which may actually be a femur), and a small chunk of maxilla containing two teeth. Originally, the advanced features of its skeleton placed it certainly within Sphenacodontia, but its retention of primitive features placed it more basal than Varanops. A more recent cladistic analysis from 2018 places it within Haptodontiformes, outside of Varanopsidae. The additional referred teeth, dorsal rib (femur), dorsal vertebrae, and neural arch are argued to not necessarily represent a member of Milosaurus due to additional pelycosaur discoveries in the area and are not included in the analysis.

Citation: Original description paper, Re-examination of the taxon

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milosaurus

[synapsidgirl]

I did a thing.

Art Nouveau is one of my favourite art styles, and I wanted to try something a little bit different, and I still have lazy Dimterodons on my mind... and that’s the result of all this.

This guy just woke up form a nap. You can run around roaring all day, you know.

I kind of like it, and probably will do a few others. I definitely want to make one with Inostrancevia - my favourite non-mammalian synapsid.

I experimented not only with style here, but with techniques as well. To make the outline, I first sketched it, and then turned it into vector. But I coloured it in Krita.

I think I’ll stick with vector outlines for the others as well - I like the clean lines it gives. It’s not the first time I did something with vectors, but up to this point I only used vectors for logos and such, so this was a little bit different.

I like the way the outline looks on its own, too. I have some vague, not very defined notion that I could do something interesting with it, but... as I said, vague.

I’ve already added this guy to my redbubble. I always find it annoying that only some of the clothes have (limited) option for the buyer to choose background colour. Especially when, like this time, I’m uploading something that doesn’t have any background. So I went with black for clothes (obviously...), white for prints and mugs, and reddish-rusty-brown similar to the colour on the top of this guy’s sail, for the rest. In other words- it’s all over the place, but I really don’t like white backgrounds.

Also, I’m never really happy with how I paint the transition between the back and the sail. I’d be much happier if there was any evidence that it was a sort of half-hump, but unfortunately, it was a sail. A few dozens Dimetrodon artworks form now, I’ll probably figure out how to get it right. But for now I’ll just have to annoy myself.