Ianthasaurus; a sail-backed edaphosaurid from the late Carboniferous period!
Fossils of Ianthasaurus were first found in a quarry near the town of Garnett, Kansas. This part of Kansas was once an open wetland environment at the edge of a large inland sea. During the late Carboniferous period, synapsids (the earliest members of the group that includes today’s mammals) were beginning to take on new ecological niches at a rapid rate. In just a few million years, some of these animals went from being small, lizard-like creatures to adapting to carnivorous and herbivorous niches, growing to larger sizes, and developing dorsal sails.
Ianthasaurus, like the rest of its edaphosaurid relatives, possessed a proportionately large dorsal sail composed of the spinous processes of its vertebrae. The exact function of these sails is still somewhat unclear, they have long been thought to have been useful for display and/or thermoregulation. The teeth of Ianthasaurus show adaptations for an herbivorous diet, although these teeth are less specialized than those of other larger edaphosaurids
