''Mandagomphodon'' is an extinct

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 ...

traversodontid Traversodontidae is an extinct family of herbivorous cynodonts. Traversodonts were primarily Gondwanan, with many species known from Africa and South America. Recently, traversodonts have also been found from Europe and eastern North America. Tra ...

cynodonts from the

Middle Triassic In the geologic timescale, the Middle Triassic is the second of three epochs of the Triassic period or the middle of three series in which the Triassic system is divided in chronostratigraphy. The Middle Triassic spans the time between Ma and ...

Lifua Member of the

Manda Beds The Manda Formation (also known as the Manda Beds) is a Middle Triassic (Anisian?) or possibly Late Triassic (Carnian?) geologic formation in Tanzania. It preserves fossils of many terrestrial vertebrates from the Triassic, including some of the e ...

of Ruhuhu Valley,

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

. 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 specime ...

''Mandagomphodon hirschsoni'' was named by Crompton in 1972 as a species referable to '' Scalenodon''. Later studies, including a 2003

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis of traversodontid relationships, did not find the species of ''Scalenodon'' from the Manda Formation to form a single clade, meaning that many were not referable to the genus. The study suggested that ''S. hirschsoni'' had more in common with other traversodontids like '' Luangwa''. ''S. attridgei'' was viewed as a possible synonym of ''S. charigi'', which was also found to be only distantly related to ''S. angustifrons''. Therefore, a new generic name ''Mandagomphodon'' was erected for ''S. hirschsoni'' by James A. Hopson in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

References

Traversodontids Prehistoric cynodont genera Anisian life Middle Triassic synapsids of Africa Triassic Tanzania Fossils of Tanzania Fossil taxa described in 2013 {{Paleo-therapsid-stub