Proterogyrinus is a proterogyrinid anthracosaurian amphibian from the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian of the United States of America and the United Kingdom. It was named in 1970 by Alfred Romer. It was a truly big anthracosaurian amphibian, and it was one of the intermediates between amphibians and reptiles.
Physiology[]
Proterogyrinus had a build that reflected its relations and evolution. It was a lizard-like animal with 4 legs, a long, broad, fin-less tail, a broad body, and a long head with big jaws. Its body would have been covered in scaly skin.
Diet[]
Proterogyrinus was a predator, preying on fish, mid-sized arthropods, reptiles, and smaller amphibians. Its jaws had sharp teeth designed for catching large animals, as well as for crushing them.
Ecology[]
Most amphibians were capable of both swimming in water and crawling onto land; Proterogyrinus would have complimented this ability, thanks to a few anatomical features. For aquatic movement, its broad tail would have provided efficient power for swimming in the water. For terrestrial movement, it had strong limbs with fully ossified ankle and wrist bones, and its feet had an increased number of toe bones, allowing for more grace on land than any other amphibian; both of those featured allowed Proterogyrinus to quickly clamber onto land in order to escape aquatic predators like Rhizodus. Despite all of its abilities on land, the structure of its ears would have worked best in water, which suggests that the amphibian would have hunted in the water.
In popular culture[]
Proterogyrinus was featured in the 2nd episode of the 2005 documentary Walking with Monsters, where it battles an Arthropleura and kills it by flipping it onto a sharp stump. As well as this, it was shown as jumping out of the water to hunt aerial predators such as Meganeura, similar to modern alligators.