''Lycideops'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

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

ns from the

Late Permian Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

of South Africa. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

is ''Lycideops longiceps'', named in 1931 by South African paleontologist

Robert Broom Robert Broom FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. From 1903 to 1910, ...

. Fossils of ''Lycideops'' come from the ''Dicynodon'' Assemblage Zone of the

Beaufort Group The Beaufort Group is the third of the main subdivisions of the Karoo Supergroup in South Africa. It is composed of a lower Adelaide Subgroup and an upper Tarkastad Subgroup. It follows conformably after the Ecca Group and unconformably underli ...

. ''Lycideops'' is a member of the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Lycideopidae Lycideopidae is an extinct family of therocephalians from the Late Permian and Early Triassic The Early Triassic is the first of three epochs of the Triassic Period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between Ma and Ma (million yea ...

. Like other lycideopids, ''Lycideops'' has a long snout.

Phylogeny

''Lycideops'' has been included in several

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analyses, including those of Huttenlocker (2009), Huttenlocker ''et al.'' (2011), and Sigurdsen ''et al.'' (2012). All place ''Lycideops'' within the advanced therocephalian clade Baurioidea. Huttenlocker (2009) and Huttenlocker ''et al.'' (2011) found it to group with ''

Regisaurus ''Regisaurus'' ("Rex's lizard", named after its discoverer Francis Rex Parrington) is an extinct genus of small carnivorous therocephalian. It is known from a single described species, the type species ''Regisaurus jacobi'', from the Early Tria ...

'' and '' Scaloposaurus'' as shown in the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

below: The analysis of Sigurdsen ''et al.'' (2012) came to a different result, grouping ''Lycideops'' with ''

Tetracynodon ''Tetracynodon'' is an extinct genus of therocephalian. Fossils of ''Tetracynodon'' have been found in the Karoo Basin of South Africa. Two species are known: the type species ''T. tenuis'' from the Late Permian and the species ''T. darti'' ...

'' and '' Choerosaurus''. The clade including these three genera was called

, and ''Lycideops'' was the most

basal Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''. Science * Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure * Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...

member of the group. Characteristics that unite ''Lycideops'' with ''Tetracynodon'' and ''Choerosaurus'' include the presence of five

incisor Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, w ...

s on each side of the lower jaw (a derived characteristic given that most other

eutherocephalia Eutherocephalia ("true beast head") is an extinct clade of advanced therocephalian therapsids. Eutherocephalians are distinguished from the lycosuchids and scylacosaurids, two early therocephalian families. While lycosuchids and scyalosaurids ...

ns have four), a

lacrimal bone The lacrimal bone is a small and fragile bone of the facial skeleton; it is roughly the size of the little fingernail. It is situated at the front part of the medial wall of the orbit. It has two surfaces and four borders. Several bony landmarks of ...

that touches the

nasal bone The nasal bones are two small oblong bones, varying in size and form in different individuals; they are placed side by side at the middle and upper part of the face and by their junction, form the bridge of the upper one third of the nose. Ea ...

, and a contact between the

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The ...

and the

vomer The vomer (; lat, vomer, lit=ploughshare) is one of the unpaired facial bones of the skull. It is located in the midsagittal line, and articulates with the sphenoid, the ethmoid, the left and right palatine bones, and the left and right maxil ...

in the palate. Below is a

from the analysis:

References

Baurioids Therocephalia genera Lopingian synapsids of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1931 Taxa named by Robert Broom Lopingian genus first appearances Lopingian genus extinctions {{paleo-therapsid-stub