Fig. 6: Reconstruction of a middle Permian lakeshore palaeoenvironment.

This reconstruction is based on new fossil information from the Onder Karoo Lagerstätte and regional occurrences of the vertebrates of the Eodicynodon Assemblage Zone in the southern Karoo Basin. The landscape is of a standing body of water, probably a pool, on the delta plain of a river as it enters the Karoo Sea (seen in the distance). Trees are Glossopteris, with buttress roots, epicormics shoots on the trunks, and leaves borne in whorls (with evidence of insect damage). Delicate horsetails of the genus Phyllotheca line the edges of the water bodies, and colonize the surrounding marshes. The large vertebrates in the middle distance are the therapsids Tapinocaninus, those in the foreground are the dicynodont Eodicynodon. Beneath the surface of the water, a Rhinesuchus amphibian can be seen hunting Namaichthys fish. Inset, a male (i) and female (ii) reproductive cones of the Glossopteris plant; b bryophytes: thallose liverwort (i), moss gametophytes with sporophytes (ii); c terrestrial insects: (i) protozygopteran (damselfly predecessor); (ii) auchenorrhynchan (leafhopper); (iii) Prosbolid hemipteran; (iv) protelytopteran; (v) archaeorthopterid; (vi) plecopteran (adult stonefly); (vii) grylloblattodean; (viii) coleopteran (beetle); aquatic invertebrates: (ix) water mite (Hydrachnidia); (x) plecopteran (stonefly nymph); (xi) leech (Clitellata); (xii) palaeodictyopteran nymph.