Gorgons survived a mass extinction

 

Image courtesy of Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY 3.0. 

Joel Kontinen

 Scientists tell us that 90% of all species went extinct during the "Great Dying" around 252 million years ago, But new research shows that in  the case of one paleo-beast — the so-called gorgon — reports of its death were greatly exaggerated.

Now they say that some of these so-called gorgons survived into the Triassic period. However, they didn't survive long, making them a "dead clade walking," the team said.

They say  that “An analysis of three specimens found in the Karoo Basin in South Africa reveals that this saber-toothed group, known as gorgonopsians, the dominant predators during the late Permian period, managed to survive the "Great Dying."

'Dead clade walking' is a term used in the evolutionary science to refer to extinction studies that refers to when a group of organisms technically survives a mass extinction, but is so damaged by it that they never recover. 

Source: 

 Geggel, Laura. 2022. Monstrous 'gorgons' survived a mass extinction, but they were a 'dead clade walking'.  Live Science 5 December