''Daptocephalus'' is an extinct

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 ...

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 ...

synapsid Synapsida is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant rept ...

, which was found in

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 ...

strata, in a biozone known precisely for the presence of fossils of this dicynodont, the ''Daptocephalus'' Assemblage Zone, in the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is ...

Basin in

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 ...

. An additional species, ''D. huenei'', is known from the Usili Formation in

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 was formerly assigned to the genus ''

Dicynodon ''Dicynodon'' (from Ancient Greek '' δίς'' "two" and '' κυνόδους'' "canine teeth", often translated to "two canine-teeth" or "two dog-teeth") is a genus of dicynodont therapsid that lived in southern and eastern Africa during the Lat ...

'' before a study in 2019 recognised that the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

belonged to ''Daptocephalus''.

References

The main groups of non-mammalian synapsids at Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
Bidentalia Lopingian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1934 Taxa named by Egbert Cornelis Nicolaas van Hoepen Changhsingian life {{anomodont-stub

See also

References