A fossilised colony of small burrowing reptiles that lived some 250 million years ago was recently found in South Africa. It’s the first time that the Procolophon trigoniceps, which lived in the lowlands of what was then the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana (today the central Karoo), has been found to have lived and died communally in complex, underground burrows. Up till now, they have only been found as single specimens.
With a short neck, long body and long tail, the Procolophon trigoniceps was about half a metre long, roughly the same size as a juvenile monitor lizard. It had a broad, flat-topped skull, with distinctive horns that pointed backwards, and enlarged chisel-like teeth designed to crush tough plants and maybe even freshwater crayfish.
