And now we wind back to the Late Permian, the time of one of the largest species of Gorgonopsid known from the fossil record, reaching the size of a grizzly bear. Inhabiting what would become northern Russia, Inostrancevia, like other gorgonopsids, was a synapsid, a group of animals that includes modern mammals. Gorgonopsids also happen to be the first instance of saber canine teeth in mammalian evolution, and unlike Thylacosmilus, these were very much killing instruments. What's interesting is that, aside from the incisors and canines, Gorgonopsids had no other teeth, meaning they had to rip off chunks of meat and swallow them whole like crocodiles. These animals were also victims of the Permian Extinction, an event so deadly that it not only ended the Paleozoic, but it eclipsed the K-T Extinction in sheer scope, also giving it the nickname of 'The Great Dying'.