Overview
- Tyrannoroter heberti, described February 10 in Nature Ecology & Evolution, is identified from a Nova Scotia skull as one of the earliest plant-eating land vertebrates.
- High-resolution CT and 3D reconstructions expose palatal and jaw dental batteries with wear facets that provide direct evidence of plant processing.
- The animal is a pantylid ‘microsaur’ on the amniote stem, known only from its skull, and is estimated to have been about 30 centimeters long and football-shaped.
- Reassessment of older pantylid fossils reveals similar adaptations by roughly 318 million years ago, indicating herbivory arose earlier and spread rapidly among early tetrapods.
- The skull was found by avocational collector Brian Hebert in a fossilized tree stump, and the authors infer a likely mixed diet while noting that links to post–Carboniferous rainforest collapse remain a developing hypothesis.