you can double click on the picture to enlarge it.

The animal I’m talking about is Dimetrodon. A real cool animal. The striking identifying character of this animal is the huge sail on it’s back. Now,this sail is a real weird stuff.
Scientifically speaking it is formed by a row of long spines.These grew out of their Vertebra.

Usually these sails are often brightly coloured.But why?

The question remains unanswered even today! But there are various possibilities:

1.attract mates or frighten off other animals
2.temperature control device, soaking up heat from the sun when the animal was cold
3.radiating heat to help it cool off

We have a special class of animals called synapsid. Basically, these consist of animals that includes mammals and everything closer to mammals.Dimetrodon belongs to them.

Behind the eye socket, we have the synapsid opening(click here to have a look). The sole purpose for th eye socket is that it gave support to the jaw muscles which helped them to chew stuff.

But the question is that, how do we know that they are the ancestors of mammals?

The answer to this question is that, even we mammals do have the synapsid opening. So, there is a huge scope for possibility!