AGE:
Late Permian, Zone III, 250 million years ago

SIZE:
About the size of a medium-sized dog, a corgi

MEANING OF NAME:
Named in honour of D. Sumin, a Russian Palaeontologist

PRONUNCIATION:
Sue-MEN-e-a

CLASSIFICATION:
THERAPSIDA: Anomodontia; Galeopidae

Incomplete skeleton and skull of a small herbivorous, quite primitive therapsid, an anomodont reptile in the dromasaur group.

The teeth of these animals were heavily abraded, and wore down rather quickly, suggesting that they fed on vegetation with a high silica content, probably the sphenopsids that were quite abundant in the permian palaeoflora. Worn teeth were rapidly replaced by a new generation of teeth, throughout the life of these animals.

Most specimens were preserved in sandstone that apparently represented a delta feeding into a playa lake that was drying up from a formerly larger body of water.