arrow Henodus
Period of life:
237-227 MYA
Era/period:
Triassic
Habitat:
Germany
Length:
1
Henodus Dino Pet
Description
Henodus or "Turtle-faced monodont" is a placodont, the fossil remains of which were discovered only in the south-west of Germany in 1936, where in the Triassic period about 230 million years ago Henodus inhabited salt and fresh water bodies. The specimen found was about 1 meter long. These creatures appeared in the sea long before the archenols and were representatives of placodonts, but with a shell that served as their protection against predators. However, unlike the turtle shell, their shell consisted of several hundred bony plates, tightly fitted to each other, like a mosaic. At the edges the shell narrowed forming a pair of flattened, but very strong flaps. Henodus had a blunt toothless mouth, and they fed on mollusks and other slow inhabitants of shallow waters. Their shell had a rectangular shape, and paws were short and thick, from which it can be concluded that he they moved mainly crawling along the seabed.