Cistecephalidae is an extinct

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

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 ...

therapsids from the

Late Permian Late or LATE may refer to: Everyday usage * Tardy, or late, not being on time * Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead Music * ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000 * Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993 * Late!, a pseudonym used by Dave Groh ...

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 ...

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and

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 ...

. It includes the genera ''

Cistecephalus ''Cistecephalus'' is an extinct genus of dicynodont therapsid from the Late Permian of southern Africa (South Africa and Zambia). It was a small, specialised, burrowing dicynodont, possibly with habits similar to a modern mole. The head was fla ...

'', ''

Cistecephaloides ''Cistecephaloides'' is an extinct genus of dicynodont therapsids of the ''Cistecephalus'' Assemblage Zone, Beaufort Group of South Africa.Kawingasaurus ''Kawingasaurus'' is an extinct genus of dicynodont therapsid from the Late Permian Usili Formation of Tanzania. It is a member of the family Cistecephalidae, and like other cistecephalids it is thought to have been fossorial. It is a member o ...

''. Cistecephalids are thought to have had a

fossorial A fossorial animal () is one that is adapted to digging and which lives primarily (but not solely) underground. Examples of fossorial vertebrates are Mole (animal), moles, badgers, naked mole-rats, meerkats, armadillos, wombats, and mole salamand ...

or burrowing lifestyle, with adaptations such as broad skulls, strong forelimbs, and squat bodies. A similar group of dicynodonts called the pylaecephalids were also fossorial, although to a lesser extent than cistecephalids. Cistecephalids showed a high level of endemism, with each of the five known species unique to a single region.

Description

Cistecephalids were small dicynodonts. Most species, with the exception of ''

Kembawacela ''Kembawacela'' ("iron digger") is an extinct genus of cistecephalid dicynodont from the Late Permian of East Africa. The genus contains two known species, the type species ''Kembawacela kitchingi'' from the Madumabisa Mudstone Formation of Zambia ...

'', lacked tusks, but sexually dimorphic supraorbital ridges were present. Cistecephalids had boxy, broad skulls with relatively laterally directed temporal openings, a result of a considerably broadened intertemporal region. ''Sauroscaptor'', the most basal genus of the family, had a less extreme broadening of the intratemporal region than in other members of the family. In the derived genera ''Cistecephaloides'' and ''Kawingasaurus'', the intratemporal portion of the skull was broader than the skull was long. Cistecephalids also had a relatively posteriorly positioned pineal foramen, which in ''Kembawacela'' and ''Sauroscaptor'' was displaced all the way to the posterior margin of the skull. They also had anteriorly directed orbits; they may have had binocular vision, which may have been an adaptation for nocturnality or an insectivorous lifestyle.

Classification

The Cistecephalidae contains five named genera each with one species. It is a member of the Dicynodont clade

Emydopoidea Emydopoidea is a group of Late Permian dicynodont therapsids. It includes the small-bodied '' Emydops'', '' Myosaurus'', and kingoriids, and the burrowing cistecephalids. Phylogeny Below is a cladogram modified from Macungo et al. (2022) show ...

. Phylogeny following Kammerer et al. 2016:

References

Emydopoidea Lopingian first appearances Lopingian extinctions Prehistoric synapsid families {{anomodont-stub