Kryostega
Added 2023-02-20 07:35:32 +0000 UTCAnother very old illustration I did for my Cynognathus Assemblage Zone story. This one was a little bit of a cheat, because it didn't technically live in South Africa like the others, as far as I know, but it's found in a contemporary fossil formation in Antarctica, which was conjoined with South Africa at the time and shares some of the same fauna, such as Cynognathus.
I picked this one for being the largest temnospondyl known from the general time period and region, with a skull of about one metre in length and total length of possibly fifteen feet, making it a good candidate for freshwater apex predator. In hindsight, the head for this drawing was a bit small compared to the rest of the body. Neither this or the Erythrosuchus would have been the largest predator in the story though.
There were also a lot of other temnospondyls known from around the time, but trying to find ones with picture references or body measurements is rather tough, although perhaps I would have picked the slightly smaller South African Xenotosuchus if I had started it now.
