Of the few courses of value I have enrolled in while at Rutgers, one of my most favorite was the paleontology class taught by William Gallagher from the NJ State Museum (which, coincidentally, has just re-opened!). Much of the course dealt with invertebrates, the lectures being more oriented towards geologists than paleontologists, but there were still a few juicy lectures towards the end that involved vertebrate diversity and evolution. During these lectures he briefly mentioned the Permian temnospondyl Eryops, and he noted that it was probably an aquatic ambush predator, or “crocodiling before there were crocodiles.” Looking like a gigantic killer salamander, Eryops may have even consumed its prey like modern crocodylians, tossing food towards the back of the