• reattach@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Pterodactyls aren’t dinosaurs, FYI: they’re pterosaurs. It doesn’t matter in the least, but I have a 5-year-old so I’m learning a lot about prehistoric reptiles.

      • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There’s two big groups of four-limbed vertebrates: amphibians (like frogs), and amniotes (like us and birds). Amniotes developed into two groups: synapsids (mammals) and saurapsids (lizards, birds, turtles, etc.).

        Dimetrodon was a synapsid that ruled the world tens of millions of years before the first dinosaurs evolved.

        That makes it really cool, actually, precisely because it isn’t a dinosaur. Dimetrodon is to us as brotosaurus is to chickens: a really interesting great great etc uncle.