''Aelurognathus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

gorgonopsia 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, a ...

therapsid Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more ...

s from the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...

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

Discovery

The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is ''Aelurognathus tigriceps'', originally named ''Scymnognathus tigriceps'' by South African paleontologists

Robert Broom Robert Broom FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. From 1903 to 1910, he ...

and Sydney H. Haughton in 1913, and later assigned to the new genus ''Aelurognathus'' by Haughton in 1924. ''Scymnognathus parringtoni'' von Huene, 1950, previously assigned to ''Aelurognathus'', is now classified as a species of ''

Sauroctonus ''Sauroctonus'' (from el, σαῦρος , 'lizard' and el, κτόνος , 'murderer') is an extinct genus of therapsids. ''Sauroctonus progressus'' was a large (2 m long) gorgonopsid that lived in the Late Permian epoch before the Permian-Tri ...

''. ''Aelurognathus nyasaensis'' Haughton, 1926 is not referable to the genus.Kammerer CF. (2016) Systematics of the Rubidgeinae (Therapsida: Gorgonopsia) PeerJ 4:e1608 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1608

Palaeobiology

A broken tooth beside the skeleton of a

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, typicall ...

from the ''Tropidostoma'' Assemblage Zone has been attributed to ''Aelurognathus'', indicating that it scavenged. The bones of the back of the skeleton are the most scattered, suggesting that the ''Aelurognathus'' individuals fed on the rear of the carcass, removing the hind limbs to reach the soft underside. The small

incisor Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, whe ...

teeth of ''Aelurognathus'' indicate that it was not able to crush bone but more likely stripped flesh from its prey like the modern-day wild dog ''

Lycaon pictus The African wild dog (''Lycaon pictus''), also called the painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is a wild canine which is a native species to sub-Saharan Africa. It is the largest wild canine in Africa, and the only extant member of the genus '' Lyc ...

''. Bite marks on the bones of the skeleton were unlikely to have been made by ''Aelurognathus'' and may be an indication that another predator killed the dicynodont.

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 d ...

from the phylogenetic analysis of Gebauer (2007): Leontocephalus

References

Gorgonopsia Prehistoric therapsid genera Permian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1924 Taxa named by Sidney H. Haughton {{Paleo-Therapsid-stub