''Wangwusaurus'' is 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 ...

of probable

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 ...

that lived in the Late Permian in present-day

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Only species is known, ''Wangwusaurus tayuensis'', described by the paleontologist Yang Zhongjian in

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

from seventeen

teeth A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...

found in the

Jiyuan formation Jiyuan () is a sub-prefecture-level city in northwestern Henan province, People's Republic of China. It borders the prefecture-level cities of Jiaozuo and Luoyang to the east and southwest respectively, as well as the province of Shanxi to the no ...

, of which at least seven are recognized as not belonging to those of therapsids.

Description

One of the teeth found also has characteristics similar to those of

gorgonopsian 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 ...

s, which earned the chinese paleontologist Yang Zhongjian to classify him as the first member of this group to have lived outside of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, places where they are officially recognized. However, three years later, in 1981, palaeontologists Denise Sigogneau-Russell and Ai-Lin Sun found the assigned material to be a random assemblage of which only two have even a remote similarity to gorgonopsians, making its classification uncertain.

References

*
The main groups of non-mammalian synapsids at Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
Prehistoric synapsid genera Lopingian synapsids of Asia Prehistoric synapsids of Asia Fossil taxa described in 1979 Taxa named by Yang Zhongjian Nomina dubia Incertae sedis Therapsids {{paleo-therapsid-stub

Description

See also

References