''Syops'' is an extinct genus of

dicynodont Dicynodontia is an extinct clade of anomodonts, an extinct type of non-mammalian therapsid. Dicynodonts were herbivores that typically bore a pair of tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'. Members of the group possessed a horny, t ...

therapsid. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

''S. vanhoepeni'' was first named in 1938 as ''

Dicynodon ''Dicynodon'' (from Ancient Greek '' δίς'' "two" and '' κυνόδους'' "canine teeth", often translated to "two canine-teeth" or "two dog-teeth") is a genus of dicynodont therapsid that lived in southern and eastern Africa during the Lat ...

vanhoepeni''. Fossils of the genus have been found in the ''Cistecephalus'' Assemblage Zone in the Usili Formation of the Ruhuhu Basin,

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

and the Upper Madumabisa Mudstone Formation of the Luangwa Basin,

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

.''Syops''
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cr ...

.org Its phylogenetic placement is somewhat uncertain, with multiple different studies finding it as either a basal geikiid, rhachiocephalid a

dicynodontoid Dicynodontoidea is an infraorder of dicynodont therapsids that includes the famous dicynodont '' Dicynodon'', '' Lystrosaurus'' and the Triassic Kannemeyeriiformes, as well as numerous other closely related species. The name was coined by Ameri ...

more derived than the most basal genera but less derived than Lystrosauridae, or a lystrosaurid.

References

Bidentalia Lopingian synapsids of Africa Fossils of Tanzania Fossils of Zambia Fossil taxa described in 2011 {{anomodont-stub