Rhizodus

Rhizodus (root tooth) is an extinct genus in the clade Sarcopterygii.

Rhizodus
Temporal range: Carboniferous 330–300 Ma
Fossil tooth of Rhizodus hibberti
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: †Rhizodontida
Family: †Rhizodontidae
Genus: †Rhizodus
Owen, 1840
Species:
†R. hibberti
Binomial name
†Rhizodus hibberti
Owen, 1840

Description
Restoration

The most notable characteristics of Rhizodus, compared to other giant lobe-fins such as Barameda, were the two 22 centimetres (8.7 in) fangs located near the front of its jaws,[1] followed by other teeth scaling downwards in size. Rhizodus was a giant apex predator that resided in freshwater lakes, river systems and large swamps in the entire Carboniferous period, feeding on small to medium-sized amphibians, using its teeth to kill prey and rip it into digestible sizes, rather than swallowing prey whole like other, smaller-toothed sarcopterygians.[2]

Fossil skin imprints show that Rhizodus had large, plate-like scales, similar to those found on modern day arapaima.[3]

Diet

Rhizodus' diet includes medium sized fish and tetrapods. It has been proposed that Rhizodus may have lunged at terrestrial, shorebound prey, just like a modern-day crocodile.[3]

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gollark: Apparently whoever wrote the specifications for what people learn in "computer science" thought it was important that people know about this, and for consistency or something they designed their own assembly language (which does not actually run on anything).
gollark: (technically a family of them, but whatever)
gollark: Assembly is basically a very low-level language which directly compiles to machine code, which is what the CPU hardware runs.
gollark: The assembly language is actually reasonable and vaguely ARM-like.

References
  1. https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2022312/93D4B7C2318323299A00BD2DBFBDC3D53C65CF02.html
  2. http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/search/item.php?record=NEWHM:2004.H206
  3. "3.4 Rhizodus". www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 29 April 2019.


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