''Tapinocephalus'' ("humble head") 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 ...

of large

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpar ...

dinocephalia Dinocephalians (terrible heads) are a clade of large-bodied early therapsids that flourished in the Early and Middle Permian between 279.5 and 260 million years ago (Ma), but became extinct during the Capitanian mass extinction event. Dinocephal ...

ns that lived during the Middle

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

Period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...

. These stocky, barrel-bodied animals were characterised by a massive bony skull roof and short weak snout. It is thought that, like the rest of the members of its

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

, the animals engaged in head-butting intraspecific behavior, possibly for

territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

or mates. The

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

remains (

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...

and postcranial elements) of ''Tapinocephalus'' are known from the Lower, Middle, and Upper part of the ''Tapinocephalus'' Assemblage Zone ( Capitanian age) of the Lower Beaufort Beds of the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

n Karoo. Only 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 ...

, ''T. atherstonei'' is now considered valid for this genus. In life, these animals were over in length and massed around , making them among the largest animals of their time.

Classification

''Tapinocephalus atherstonei'' is known from a number of skulls and postcranial bones. The skull is large with a heavily pachyostotic skull roof, a massive bony frontals and a short weak ''

Moschops ''Moschops'' (Greek for "calf face") is an extinct genus of therapsids that lived in the Guadalupian epoch, around 265–260 million years ago. They were heavily built plant eaters, and they may have lived partly in water, as hippopotamuses do. ...

''-like snout.'' Taurops'' is a synonym. ''

Phocosaurus ''Phocosaurus'' is an extinct genus of tapinocephalian therapsid. See also * List of synapsids These lists of synapsids collectively include every genus that has ever been included in the clade Synapsida- the mammals and their evolutionary precu ...

megischion '' is another synonym differing only in that the transition from the frontals to the snout is not abrupt.

Sources

* Boonstra, L.D. 1956, "The skull of ''Tapinocephalus'' and its near relatives" ''Annals of the South African Museum'', 43 Part 3 pp. 137–169, 17 figs, plate 4. * ----- 1969. The fauna of the ''Tapinocephalus'' Zone (Beaufort beds of the Karoo). ''Ann. S. Afr. Mus.'' 56:1–73. * King, Gillian M., 1988 "Anomodontia" Part 17 C, Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology, Gutsav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart and New York.

External links

Tapinocephalia - ''Tapinocephalus''
- Palaeos {{Taxonbar, from=Q134559 Tapinocephalians Prehistoric therapsid genera Guadalupian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1876 Taxa named by Richard Owen