''Watongia'' is an extinct genus of non-

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

ian synapsids from Middle Permian of

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

. Only one species has been described, ''Watongia meieri'', from the

Chickasha Formation The Chickasha Formation is a geologic formation in Oklahoma. It preserves fossils dating back to the Permian period. See also * List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Oklahoma * Paleontology in Oklahoma Paleontology in Oklahoma refers ...

. It was assigned to family

Gorgonopsidae 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, ...

by OlsonOlson, E.C. 1974. On the Source of Therapsids. ''Annals of the South African Museum'' 64: 27-46. and to

Eotitanosuchia Eotitanosuchidae is an extinct family of biarmosuchian therapsids. The Eotitanosuchidae were large predatory therapsids of the Wordian epoch. It was once considered to belong to a separate infraorder of therapsids called Eotitanosuchia. Characte ...

by Carroll. Reisz and collaborators assigned the genus in Varanopidae. Based on scaling with other

synapsids 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 Sauropsida, sauropsids, the group that inc ...

, length of ''Watongia'' was about , making it the largest of the family Varanopidae.Watongia , mAnasa-taraMgiNI
/ref>

References

External links

The main groups of non-mammalian synapsids at Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
Varanopids Prehistoric synapsid genera Guadalupian synapsids of North America Taxa named by Everett C. Olson Fossil taxa described in 1974 {{paleo-synapsid-stub