''Lycaenops'' ("wolf-face") is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other ...

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. It lived during the

Middle Permian The Guadalupian is the second and middle series/ epoch of the Permian. The Guadalupian was preceded by the Cisuralian and followed by the Lopingian. It is named after the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico and Texas, and dates between 272.95 ± ...

to the early Late Permian, about 260 mya, in what is now

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 coun ...

Description

''Lycaenops'' measured about and weighed up to .Gorgonopsia
/ref> Like the modern-day wolves from which it takes its name, ''Lycaenops'' had a long and slender skull, with a set of dog-like

fangs A fang is a long, pointed tooth. In mammals, a fang is a modified maxillary tooth, used for biting and tearing flesh. In snakes, it is a specialized tooth that is associated with a venom gland (see snake venom). Spiders also have external ...

set into both its upper and lower jaws. These pointed canine teeth were ideal for the use of stabbing and/or tearing at the flesh of any large prey that it came upon. ''Lycaenops'' most likely hunted small vertebrates such as

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchoceph ...

and

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 ...

s. ''Lycaenops'' walked and ran with its long legs held close to its body. This is a feature found in mammals, but not in more primitive

amniote Amniotes are a clade of tetrapod vertebrates that comprises sauropsids (including all reptiles and birds, and extinct parareptiles and non-avian dinosaurs) and synapsids (including pelycosaurs and therapsids such as mammals). They are dis ...

s, early reptiles, and

synapsid Synapsids + (, 'arch') > () "having a fused arch"; synonymous with ''theropsids'' (Greek, "beast-face") are one of the two major groups of animals that evolved from basal amniotes, the other being the sauropsids, the group that includes reptil ...

s such as

pelycosaur Pelycosaur ( ) is an older term for basal or primitive Late Paleozoic synapsids, excluding the therapsids and their descendants. Previously, the term ''mammal-like reptile'' had been used, and pelycosaur was considered an order, but this is ...

s, whose legs are positioned to the sides of their bodies. The ability to move like a mammal would have given ''Lycaenops'' an advantage over other land vertebrates, since it would have been able to outrun them.

Species

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 specim ...

''Lycaenops ornatus'' was 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 1925. Several other species have also been referred to the genus, including ''L. angusticeps'', which was originally named ''Scymnognathus angusticeps'', ''L. kingwilli'', which was originally named ''Tigricephalus kingwilli'' and is now placed in the genus '' Aelurognathus'', and ''L. tenuirostris'', which was originally named ''Tangagorgon tenuirostris'' and is now in the genus '' Cyonosaurus''. Two additional species, ''L. microdon'' and ''L. sollasi'', were added to ''Lycaenops'' after having been classified as species of ''Aelurognathus''. The species ''L. minor'' is now considered a synonym of ''L. sollasi''.

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 ...

from the phylogenetic analysis of Gebauer (2007):

References

;Notes ;Sources
The Paleobiology Database
* Broom 1925 : On some carnivorous therapsids. Records of the Albany Museum, vol. 3, n. 4, p. 309–326.
Edwin Р. Colbert «The mammal-like reptile Lycaenops» Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
{{Taxonbar, from=Q132713 Gorgonopsia Prehistoric therapsid genera Guadalupian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1925 Lopingian synapsids of Africa Taxa named by Robert Broom Guadalupian genus first appearances Capitanian genera Wuchiapingian genera Lopingian genus extinctions

Description

Species

Classification

See also

References