''Arctognathus'' is an
extinct
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of
gorgonopsids that throve during the
Late Permian
Late or LATE may refer to:
Everyday usage
* Tardy, or late, not being on time
* Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead
Music
* ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000
* Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993
* Late!, a pseudonym used by Dave Groh ...
in the
Karoo basin
The Karoo Supergroup is the most widespread stratigraphic unit in Africa south of the Kalahari Desert. The supergroup consists of a sequence of units, mostly of nonmarine origin, deposited between the Late Carboniferous and Early Jurassic, a per ...
of what is now
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
.
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
A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...
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 Genus, genera that have ever been included in the Therapsida excluding mammals and purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also gene ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
Gorgonopsia
Prehistoric therapsid genera
Lopingian synapsids of Africa
Fossil taxa described in 1911
Taxa named by Robert Broom
Lopingian genus first appearances
Lopingian genus extinctions
{{paleo-therapsid-stub