''Gorynychus'' is a genus of

therocephalia Therocephalia is an extinct clade of therapsids (mammals and their close extinct relatives) from the Permian and Triassic periods. The therocephalians ("beast-heads") are named after their large skulls, which, along with the structure of their te ...

n from the mid-Permian from Kotelnich,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The genus contains two species, ''G. masyutinae'' and ''G. sundyrensis''. It was named after the three-headed dragon Zmey Gorynych (Змей Горыныч) from Russian mythology.

Description

''G. masyutinae'', only known from its

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

, was wolf-sized and appears to have represented the largest predator in the Kotelnich fauna. Like many theriodonts, it had strongly developed and prominent canine teeth.

Paleoecology

The discovery of such a large therocephalian as the apex predator of its environment coupled with the discovery of a smaller gorgonopsid, the smaller and nocturnal '' Nochnitsa'', in the same formation indicates that a faunal turnover was occurring at the time, with gorgonopsians taking over the therocephalians' role as the dominant predators in their environment.

References

Fossil taxa described in 2018 Permian animals Therocephalia genera {{paleo-therapsid-stub