''Myosaurus'' is an extinct genus of

dicynodont Dicynodontia is an extinct clade of anomodonts, an extinct type of non-mammalian therapsid. Dicynodonts were herbivorous animals with a pair of tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'. Members of the group possessed a horny, typic ...

found primarily in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

History

The family Myosauridae is known only from

fossilized A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

skull specimens. The family is distinguished from other families in the infraorder

Dicynodontia Dicynodontia is an extinct clade of anomodonts, an extinct type of non-mammalian therapsid. Dicynodonts were herbivorous animals with a pair of tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'. Members of the group possessed a horny, typica ...

by the larger breadth of the skull samples in the intertemporal region. ''Myosaurus'' used to be a member of the family Endothiodontidae but was placed in its own family after further investigation.

References

Dicynodonts Early Triassic synapsids of Africa Prehistoric vertebrates of Antarctica Triassic Antarctica Fossil taxa described in 1917 Taxa named by Sidney H. Haughton Anomodont genera {{anomodont-stub

History

See also

References