Trace fossil of Dimentrodon's lowered metacarpal palmer lobes. Lowered metacarpal palmer lobes (conversely raised claws) usually impressed independently since that was their functionality: The reason was to improve traction on sticky swamp mud of Kasimovian times (often uplifted sea mud) and also to allow the claws to elevate in order to swivel the manus. This is an early genesis trait not visible in an early Permian dimetrodon manus and can serve as an index fossil of late Pennsylvanian Dimetrodon footprints. traces of sdimented blue-green algae and Raindrops, traces of sedimentated blue-green algae and conifer frond traces also included. Second photo shows a concave example of lowered metacarpal palmer lobes, not included. This metacarpal lobe fossil is unusual in that it shows four lobes. Conifer frond trace is better defined than in photo which was taken in very strong sunlight.


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Please note that we have changed from early Permian to Kasimovian late- Pennsylvanian. You can read Kasimovian-age abstract by Henry Ortiz on academiaedu.com. After years of research, the El Pueblo ichnotelmafacies (swamp facies) turned out to be late Pennsylvanian. The site represents an early departure from quasi-marine rain-forest swamps to a foreland basin and on to sinkhole-induced swamps produced by the dissolution of carbonate beds that created spot susidence as the burial of the inland sea progressed. Karst subsidence produced a chain of swamps leading down from the upland to the lowland. Burial of the lowland progressed as uplifts triggered by inter-continental pressure weathered and eroded during heavy rainfall. The geological-time stage represents the formation of Pangea. The late Pennsylvanian taxa was diverse and finely integrated into a very efficient reproductive and self sustaining foodchain system. The El Pueblo ichnotelmafacies was mistakenly identified as early Permian within the New Mexico geological record, something that has probably happened elsewhere. Thanks to the footprints of giant dragonflies and thirty-inch-long centipedes, the early Permian record now stands corrected. The different taxa in the El Pueblo swamp clarrified that both amphibians and reptilians did not wait for the beginning of the Permian Period to diversify, e.g., an early Gorgonops and a four-digit Eryops were contemporaneous in the El Pueblo swamp of over 305 million years ago (Henry Ortiz 2026).