''Ulemica'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

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 venyukovioid

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, a type of

anomodont Anomodontia is an extinct group of non-mammalian therapsids from the Permian and Triassic periods. By far the most speciose group are the dicynodonts, a clade of beaked, tusked herbivores.Chinsamy-Turan, A. (2011) ''Forerunners of Mammals: Ra ...

related to

dicynodonts 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, typicall ...

. 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 ± ...

period in what is now

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

, and is known from the Isheevo assemblage of the Amanakskaya Formation. 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 ...

, ''U. invisa'', was originally placed in the genus '' Venyukovia'' by Russian

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

Ivan Efremov in 1940. It was later given its own genus ''Ulemica'' in 1996 by Mikhaïl Ivakhnenko, who also named a second species ''U. efremovi''. Efremov had originally intended to name the fossils of ''U. invisa'' as 'Myctosuchus invisus', however, he later recognised their similarity to ''Venyukovia'' and chose to assign the Isheevo material to this genus and leaving 'Myctosuchus' a ''

nomen nudum In taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate desc ...

''.

''Ulemica'' is known from multiple skulls and jaws from individuals of various ages, mostly of ''U. invisa'', while ''U. efremovi'' is known only by a single skull. An unusual feature of ''Ulemica'' is a pair of prominent bony bosses on each mandible, one at the bottom corner of the chin and another along the bottom edge of the jaw. These bosses are only seen in the largest and presumably oldest individuals.

References

External links

The main groups of non-mammalian synapsids at Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
Anomodont genera Guadalupian synapsids Guadalupian genus first appearances Guadalupian genus extinctions Fossils of Russia Fossil taxa described in 1996 {{anomodont-stub

See also

References

External links