Kannemeyeria Lophorhinus
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Kannemeyeria Lophorhinus
OR:
Kannemeyeria Lophorhinus on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

''Kannemeyeria'' is a
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of
dicynodont Dicynodontia is an extinct clade of anomodonts, an extinct type of non-mammalian therapsid. Dicynodonts were herbivores that typically bore a pair of tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'. Members of the group possessed a horny, t ...
that lived during the
Anisian In the geologic timescale, the Anisian is the lower stage (stratigraphy), stage or earliest geologic age, age of the Middle Triassic series (stratigraphy), series or geologic epoch, epoch and lasted from million years ago until million years ag ...
age of
Middle Triassic In the geologic timescale, the Middle Triassic is the second of three epoch (geology), epochs of the Triassic period (geology), period or the middle of three series (stratigraphy), series in which the Triassic system (stratigraphy), system is di ...
period in what is now
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
. The generic name is given in honor of
Daniel Rossouw Kannemeyer Daniel Rossouw Kannemeyer (26 December 1843 Cape Town – 1 January 1925 Bloemfontein) was a South African medical practitioner, naturalist, archaeologist and palaeontologist, the son of Daniel Gerhardus Kannemeyer and Johanna Susanna Rossouw He ...
, the South African fossil collector who discovered the original specimen. It is one of the first representatives of the family, and hence one of the first large
herbivores A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat ...
of the
Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...
.


Description

''Kannemeyeria'' was about in length, about the size of an ox. Although it had a large head, it was lightweight due to the size of the eye sockets and nasal cavity. It also had limb girdles which formed massive plates of bone that helped support its heavily built body. ''Kannemeyeria'' was well-adapted to living as a herbivore; it had a powerful beak and strong jaw muscles built for shearing plant material. ''Kannemeyeria'' had a massive head with unusually large openings for the eyes, nostrils and jaw muscles. It evidently tore up roots, stripped leaves from the vegetation with its horny beak and ground them up with its toothless jaws. In a zone of
Karoo Supergroup The Karoo Supergroup is the most widespread stratigraphic unit in Africa south of the Kalahari Desert. The supergroup consists of a sequence of units, mostly of nonmarine origin, deposited between the Late Carboniferous and Early Jurassic, a per ...
, ''Kannemeyeria'' is found alongside large
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 nutrition and energy requirements are met by consumption of animal tissues (mainly mu ...
archosaur Archosauria () or archosaurs () is a clade of diapsid sauropsid tetrapods, with birds and crocodilians being the only extant taxon, extant representatives. Although broadly classified as reptiles, which traditionally exclude birds, the cladistics ...
''
Erythrosuchus ''Erythrosuchus'' (from , 'red' and , 'crocodile') is an extinct genus of archosauriform reptiles from the early Triassic of South Africa. Remains have been found from the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone of the Beaufort Group in the Karoo of South ...
''.


Distribution

''Kannemeyeria'' is known from the Subzone B of
Burgersdorp Formation The ''Cynognathus'' Assemblage Zone is a tetrapod biozone utilized in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. It is equivalent to the Burgersdorp Formation, the youngest lithostratigraphic formation in the Beaufort Group, which is part of the fossili ...
of
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, the
Ntawere Formation The Ntawere Formation is a Middle Triassic (Anisian) geological formation in Zambia, preserving fossils of synapsids, archosaurs, and temnospondyls. Geology Several different facies are present in the Ntawere Formation, reconstructing a floodpl ...
of
Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
, the
Omingonde Formation The Omingonde Formation is an Early Triassic, Early to Middle Triassic (Anisian to Ladinian) geologic Formation (geology), formation, part of the Karoo Supergroup, in the western Otjozondjupa Region and northeastern Erongo Region of north-central N ...
of
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
, the Lifua member of
Manda Formation The Manda Formation (also known as the Manda Beds) is a Middle Triassic (Anisian?) or possibly Late Triassic (Carnian?) Formation (stratigraphy), geologic formation in Tanzania. It preserves fossils of many terrestrial vertebrates from the Triassi ...
of
Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
, and the Quebrada de los Fósiles Formation of
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
.


Classification

Below is a
cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...
from Kammerer ''et al.'' (2013):


See also

*
List of therapsids This list of therapsids is an attempt to create a comprehensive listing of all Genus, genera that have ever been included in the Therapsida excluding mammals and purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also gene ...


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q132748 Middle Triassic synapsids of South America Triassic Argentina Fossils of Argentina Kannemeyeriiformes Anomodont genera Fossils of Russia Early Triassic synapsids of Africa Triassic Namibia Fossils of Namibia Omingonde Formation Triassic South Africa Fossils of South Africa Triassic Tanzania Fossils of Tanzania Fossils of Zambia Fossil taxa described in 1908 Taxa named by Harry Seeley