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Lycaenops Life Restoration
''Lycaenops'' ("wolf-face") is a genus of carnivorous therapsids. It lived during the Middle Permian to the early Late Permian, about 260 mya, in what is now South Africa. Description ''Lycaenops'' measured about and weighed up to . Like the modern-day wolves from which it takes its name, ''Lycaenops'' had a long and slender skull, with a set of dog-like fangs set into both its upper and lower jaws. These pointed canine teeth were ideal for the use of stabbing and/or tearing at the flesh of any large prey that it came upon. ''Lycaenops'' most likely hunted small vertebrates such as reptiles and dicynodonts. ''Lycaenops'' walked and ran with its long legs held close to its body. This is a feature found in mammals, but not in more primitive amniotes, early reptiles, and synapsids such as pelycosaurs, whose legs are positioned to the sides of their bodies. The ability to move like a mammal would have given ''Lycaenops'' an advantage over other land vertebrates, since it would h ...
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Middle Permian
The Guadalupian is the second and middle series/epoch of the Permian. The Guadalupian was preceded by the Cisuralian and followed by the Lopingian. It is named after the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico and Texas, and dates between 272.95 ± 0.5 – 259.1 ± 0.4 Mya. The series saw the rise of the therapsids, a minor extinction event called Olson's Extinction and a significant mass extinction called the end-Capitanian extinction event. The Guadalupian was previously known as the Middle Permian. Name and background The Guadalupian is the second and middle series or epoch of the Permian. Previously called Middle Permian, the name of this epoch is part of a revision of Permian stratigraphy for standard global correlation. The name "Guadalupian" was first proposed in the early 1900s, and approved by the International Subcommission on Permian Stratigraphy in 1996. References to the Middle Permian still exist. The Guadalupian was preceded by the Cisuralian and followed by the Lop ...
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Lycaenops Ornatus 1
''Lycaenops'' ("wolf-face") is a genus of carnivore, carnivorous therapsids. It lived during the Middle Permian to the early Late Permian, about 260 mya, in what is now South Africa. Description ''Lycaenops'' measured about and weighed up to . Like the modern-day wolves from which it takes its name, ''Lycaenops'' had a long and slender skull, with a set of dog-like canine teeth, fangs set into both its upper and lower jaws. These pointed canine teeth were ideal for the use of stabbing and/or tearing at the flesh of any large prey that it came upon. ''Lycaenops'' most likely hunted small vertebrates such as reptiles and dicynodonts. ''Lycaenops'' walked and ran with its long legs held close to its body. This is a feature found in mammals, but not in more primitive amniotes, early reptiles, and synapsids such as pelycosaurs, whose legs are positioned to the sides of their bodies. The ability to move like a mammal would have given ''Lycaenops'' an advantage over other land verteb ...
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Arctognathus
''Arctognathus'' is an extinct genus of gorgonopsids that throve during the Late Permian in the Karoo basin of what is now South Africa. Discovery A carnivore, like all gorgonopsid, ''Arctognathus'' was given its name ("Bear jaw") in reference to its short and rounded snout. There is only one recognized species, ''A. curvimola''. Description It was a small gorgonopsid with a total length estimated at 1.1 m and an 18 cm skull. Classification Below is a cladogram from the phylogenetic analysis of Gebauer (2007): See also * List of therapsids This list of therapsids is an attempt to create a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the Therapsida excluding mammals and purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also genera tha ... References Bibliography * * Gorgonopsia Prehistoric therapsid genera Lopingian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1911 Taxa named by Robert Broom Loping ...
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Gorgonops
''Gorgonops'' (from el, Γοργών 'Gorgon' and 'eye, face', literally 'Gorgon eye' or 'Gorgon face') is an extinct genus of gorgonopsian therapsids, of which it is the type genus, having lived during the Late Permian (Wuchiapingian), about 260–254 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Despite its popularity, ''Gorgonops'' is a medium-sized gorgonopsian (about long maximum), regularly confused by the general public with the more massive ''Inostrancevia'', known from Russia, due to their similar appearance and the various media that tend to refer them by the name of the group they belong rather than by their genus names, which does not help in differentiation. History of discovery The holotype of the type species, ''Gorgonops torvus'', was in 1876 one of the first therapsids described, by Richard Owen, who also coined the name "Dinosauria" on the basis of the first known dinosaur fossils. It was also used as the type for which Richard Lydekker described the family ...
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Eoarctops
''Eriphostoma'' is an extinct genus of gorgonopsian therapsids known from the Middle Permian (middle Capitanian stage) of ''Tapinocephalus'' Assemblage Zone, South Africa. It has one known species, ''Eriphostoma microdon'', and was first named by Robert Broom in 1911. It is the oldest known gorgonopsian and among the smallest and most basal members of the clade. Description Gorgonopsians were a morphologically conservative group, and like all gorgonopsians, ''Eriphostoma'' would have been a quadrupedal predator. It was among the smaller members of the group, with a skull less than long. It had a relatively short, deep snout and large orbits compared to other gorgonopsians. Like all gorgonopsians, it had five incisors and a canine tooth on each side of the upper jaw, but it had only three small postcanine teeth in its maxilla. The palate of ''Eriphostoma'' has delta-shaped palatine bosses covered in numerous teeth, like ''Gorgonops'' and many basal therapsids, but not more de ...
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Scylacognathus
''Eriphostoma'' is an extinct genus of gorgonopsian therapsids known from the Middle Permian (middle Capitanian stage) of ''Tapinocephalus'' Assemblage Zone, South Africa. It has one known species, ''Eriphostoma microdon'', and was first named by Robert Broom in 1911. It is the oldest known gorgonopsian and among the smallest and most basal members of the clade. Description Gorgonopsians were a morphologically conservative group, and like all gorgonopsians, ''Eriphostoma'' would have been a quadrupedal predator. It was among the smaller members of the group, with a skull less than long. It had a relatively short, deep snout and large orbits compared to other gorgonopsians. Like all gorgonopsians, it had five incisors and a canine tooth on each side of the upper jaw, but it had only three small postcanine teeth in its maxilla. The palate of ''Eriphostoma'' has delta-shaped palatine bosses covered in numerous teeth, like ''Gorgonops'' and many basal therapsids, but not more der ...
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Gorgonopsidae
Gorgonopsia (from the Greek Gorgon, a mythological beast, and 'aspect') is an extinct clade of sabre-toothed therapsids from the Middle to Upper Permian roughly 265 to 252 million years ago. They are characterised by a long and narrow skull, as well as elongated upper and sometimes lower canine teeth and incisors which were likely used as slashing and stabbing weapons. Postcanine teeth are generally reduced or absent. For hunting large prey, they possibly used a bite-and-retreat tactic, ambushing and taking a debilitating bite out of the target, and following it at a safe distance before its injuries exhausted it, whereupon the gorgonopsian would grapple the animal and deliver a killing bite. They would have had an exorbitant gape, possibly in excess of 90°, without having to unhinge the jaw. They markedly increased in size as time went on, growing from small skull lengths of in the Middle Permian to bear-like proportions of up to in the Upper Permian. The latest gorgonop ...
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Aelurosaurus
''Aelurosaurus'' ("cat lizard", from Ancient Greek "cat" and "lizard") is a small, carnivorous, extinct genus of gorgonopsian therapsids from the Middle Permian to Late Permian of South Africa. It was discovered in the Karoo Basin of South Africa, and first named by Richard Owen in 1881. It was named so because it appeared to be an ancestor for cat-like marsupials, but not yet a mammal itself. It contains five species, ''A. felinus'', ''A. whaitsi, A. polyodon'', ''A. wilmanae, and A.? watermeyeri''.Owen, R. 1881. On the order Theriodontia with a description of a new genus and species (Aelurognathus fel. Ow.). Quat. Jour. Geol. Soc. London. (Vol. 37): 261–265. ''A. felinus'', the type species, is generally well described with established features, while the other four species are not due to their poorly preserved holotypes. __TOC__ Discovery ''Aelurosaurus'' was discovered in 1881 in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. The skull holotype was missing the postorbital region, so ...
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Aloposaurus
''Aloposaurus'' is an extinct genus of gorgonopsian therapsids from the Late Permian of South Africa. It was first named by Robert Broom in 1910, and contains the type species ''A. gracilis'', and possibly a second species ''A. tenuis''. This small gorgonopsid had a slender narrow skull only long, with a total body length of . Classification Below is a cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ... from the phylogenetic analysis of Gebauer (2007): References Sources paleodb.org Gorgonopsia Prehistoric therapsid genera Lopingian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1910 Taxa named by Robert Broom Lopingian genus first appearances Lopingian genus extinctions {{paleo-therapsid-stub ...
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Cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to descendants, nor does it show how much they have changed, so many differing evolutionary trees can be consistent with the same cladogram. A cladogram uses lines that branch off in different directions ending at a clade, a group of organisms with a last common ancestor. There are many shapes of cladograms but they all have lines that branch off from other lines. The lines can be traced back to where they branch off. These branching off points represent a hypothetical ancestor (not an actual entity) which can be inferred to exhibit the traits shared among the terminal taxa above it. This hypothetical ancestor might then provide clues about the order of evolution of various features, adaptation, and other evolutionary narratives about ance ...
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Lycaenops FMNH
''Lycaenops'' ("wolf-face") is a genus of carnivorous therapsids. It lived during the Middle Permian to the early Late Permian, about 260 mya, in what is now South Africa. Description ''Lycaenops'' measured about and weighed up to . Like the modern-day wolves from which it takes its name, ''Lycaenops'' had a long and slender skull, with a set of dog-like fangs set into both its upper and lower jaws. These pointed canine teeth were ideal for the use of stabbing and/or tearing at the flesh of any large prey that it came upon. ''Lycaenops'' most likely hunted small vertebrates such as reptiles and dicynodonts. ''Lycaenops'' walked and ran with its long legs held close to its body. This is a feature found in mammals, but not in more primitive amniotes, early reptiles, and synapsids such as pelycosaurs, whose legs are positioned to the sides of their bodies. The ability to move like a mammal would have given ''Lycaenops'' an advantage over other land vertebrates, since it would h ...
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