Dimetrodons were first discovered by Donald McLeod in 1845 in Canada, who uncovered a jawbone. In the 1870s, paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope would gather and study many fossils uncovered in Texas that would be assigned to Dimetrodon.
In the early 1900s, paleontologists E. C. Case and Alfred Romer would examine a number of the available fossils and name many of the different species of Dimetrodon we know today. In the 1960s and 70s, more and more Dimetrodons were found in states including Utah, New Mexico, and Ohio. In 2001, the first remains from outside the U.S. were found in Germany.
The earliest Dimetrodon remains lacked most of the tailbones of Dimetrodon, so they were often depicted with very short tails until around 1927, when the first complete tails were discovered.
Due to its distinctive sail, Dimetrodon is often depicted in books, toys and other media associated with prehistoric creatures. It is often grouped with dinosaurs, though it predated them by millions of years. Though it wasn’t actually a reptile, it is often depicted with scales. It isn’t known whether Dimetrodon had a covering of scales, like reptiles, or skin, like mammals. It may have had a combination of both.
