''Simorhinella'' (meaning "little pug-nose" in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

) is an extinct

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 ...

therocephalia Therocephalia is an extinct suborder of eutheriodont therapsids (mammals and their close relatives) from the Permian and Triassic. The therocephalians ("beast-heads") are named after their large skulls, which, along with the structure of their te ...

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

Late Permian Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

of South Africa. It is known from a single species, ''Simorhinella baini'', named by South African paleontologist

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 ...

in 1915. Broom named it on the basis of a single fossil collected by the

British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

in 1878 that included the skull and jaws forward from the eye sockets. The skull is unusual in that it has an extremely short and deep snout, unlike the longer and lower snouts of most other therocephalians. Because of the skull's distinctiveness, the classification of ''Simorhinella'' within Therocephalia is uncertain. However, a 2014 study proposed that it was closely related to the basal therocephalian ''

Lycosuchus ''Lycosuchus'' ("wolf crocodile") is an extinct genus of carnivorous therocephalians which lived in the Middle Permian 265—260 Ma existing for approximately . As a member of the Lycosuchidae, the genus represents one of the earliest divergi ...

'', placing it in the family

Lycosuchidae Lycosuchidae is an extinct family of therocephalian therapsids from the Middle Permian Beaufort Group of South Africa. It currently contains two monotypic genera, ''Lycosuchus'', represented by ''L. vanderrieti'', which was named by paleontologis ...

References

Therocephalia genera Lopingian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1915 Taxa named by Robert Broom Lopingian genus first appearances Lopingian genus extinctions {{Paleo-Therapsid-stub