Koolasuchus Yotsugi - Dead Clade Walking

Dead Clade Walking is a term coined by scientist David Joblonski to describe a lineage that survived a mass extinction but either (1) died out a few million years later, or (2) suffered a significant reduction in their diversity and subsequently failed to recover to their previously level of diversity and abundance, thus remaining in the margin of ecosystems and eventually petering out of existence.

Koolasuchus can be considered to have been a member of a Dead Clade Walking. It was a very large amphibian (4-5 metres long) that belonged to an extinct group call the Temnospondyli that lived between the Carboniferous and Cretaceous period (some of them have also been called "labyrinthodonts" which is an older term that is not as commonly used anymore). The temnospondyls flourished and diversified around the world through the Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic period. During the Permian, some genus such as Prionosuchus grew to 6 metres long and were the largest known amphibians of all time. Temnospondyls survived the catastrophic end-Permian mass extinction event (which wiped out over 95% of all life on Earth at the time), and went on to flourish and reached a peak in diversity during the Triassic. But the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction event took a massive toll on their numbers and most temnospondyls died out, leaving behind some straggler lineages, their former ecological niches mostly taken over by newly evolved taxa.

Koolasuchus was among the last of the the temnospondyls - a dying lineage which was once abundant and diverse. It would have most likely lived as a stream-dwelling semi-aquatic predator, filling an ecological niche similar to modern crocodiles. Koolasuchus was able to persist in the refugia environment in the southern part of Australia during the Early Cretaceous, where the colder climate had kept the likes of newly evolved crocodilians at bay until about 110 million years ago when the climate warmed enough that the crocodiles moved in and displaced Koolasuchus from its niche.

Ononoki Yotsugi is a character from the Monogatari series. She first appeared in Nisemonogatari (偽物語) as Kagenui Yozuru's shikigami, who is a professional onmyouji/ghostbuster that specialise in slaying immortal oddities. Particular notable about Yotsugi include her expressionless face, distinctive apparel, eccentric mannerism, and her "Unlimited Rulebook" powers. Originally a side character which only made brief appearances, she played a more important role in Monogatari Series: Second Season, and got centre stage (kind of) in the most recent instalment of the Monogatari series - Tsukimonogatari (憑物語), which went into a little more details about her origin. Yotsugi is a tsukumogami which has been made from a corpse. She was once a human who had died, but was resurrected by a group of specialists - essentially a living corpse.

There some loose parallels and contrasts between Ononoki Yotsugi and Koolasuchus (at least enough to act as an excuse for me to draw this piece). The former is a human who had died, but brought back to life as a tsukumogami. The latter is the last of a lineage which has cheated extinction, only to be cast to the ecological fringes and Koolasuchus stood as the very last member of a Dead Clade Walking. Both can be seen as the walking dead - in their own ways.

Yaaay. Peace, peace. I wrote with a posed look.

On a related note, see also my drawing of Oshino Shinobu as the newly-discovered scansoriopterygidae, Yi qi.