In Depth
Trirachodon is a genus of cynodont therapsid that lived in Africa during the mid Triassic. Trirachodon are known to have lived in burrows, and studies of the burrow structure as well as the discovery of up to twenty individual Trirachodon in the same burrow system show us that Trirachodon most probably lived in communal burrows. In this example it is thought that all of the Trirachodon died at the same time as one another when they were caught in a flash flood.
Further Reading
- Researches on the structure, organization and classification of the fossil Reptilia. On Diademdon. - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 185:1029–1041. - Harry Govier Seeley - 1895. - On the structure, organization and classification of the fossil Reptilia III. On Trirachodon. - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 186:48–57.- Harry Govier Seeley - 1895. - Changing fluvial environments and vertebrate taphonomy in response to climatic drying in a Mid−Triassic rift valley fill: The Omingonde Formation (Karoo Supergroup) of Central Namibia. - Palaios 17(3):249–267. - R. Smith & R. Swart - 2002. - Growth and life habits of the Triassic cynodont Trirachodon, inferred from bone histology. - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 49(4):619-627. - J. Botha & A. Chinsamy - 2004. - A new trirachodontid cynodont from the lower levels of the Burgersdorp Formation (Lower Triassic) of the Beaufort Group, South Africa and the cladistic relationships of Gondwanan gomphodonts. - Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 147:383-413. - F. Abdala, J. Neveling, J. Welman - 2006.
