''Moschowhaitsia'' is an extinct genus of

therocephalian 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 ...

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 ...

(Guadalupian) of Russia and China. The type species, ''Moschowhaitsia vjuschkovi'', was discovered in the Changxingian-aged Archosaurus Assemblage Zone of Russia and named in 1963 by Russian palaeontologist Leonid Petrovich Tatarinov. A second species was discovered in Jingtai County of Gansu, China in 2020 and named as ''M. lidaqingi'' in 2023 by Jun Liu and Fernando Abdala, the first whaitsiid therocephalian to be discovered in China. It was among the larger carnivores in the faunal assemblages it occurred in, with a skull-length of up to in ''M. vjuschkovi'' and an even larger estimated for ''M. lidaqingi'', one of the largest therocephalian skulls reported. The genus name ''Moschowhaitsia'' alludes to two other therocephalians, ''Moschorhinus'' and ''Whaitsia'' (a junior synonym of ''Theriognathus''), due to the structure of its palate combining physical features of both these genera.

Classification and taxonomy

''Moschowhaitsia'' is a member of the derived therocephalian clade Whaitsiidae, ranked as a Family (biology), family under traditional Linnaean taxonomy. Tatarinov initially assigned ''Moschowhaitsia'' to its own monotypic subfamily of whaitsiids, Moschowhaitsiinae, on the basis that it appeared to him as an intermediate form bridging the anatomy of two other subfamilies of whaitsiids, Whaitsiinae and Moschorhininae. Some later researchers, including Tatarinov himself, would later elevate ''Moschowhaitsia'' to family level distinction (Moschowhaitsiidae), along with other subtaxa of whaitsiids, although nonetheless retaining the existing close taxonomic relationships under the superfamily Whaitsioidea. However, later research of therocephalian evolution using cladistics regardless of taxonomic ranking have found that many of the various whaitsiids/whaitsioids are in fact only distantly related to each other, with many belonging to the earlier-diverging clade Akidnognathidae instead (including members of Moschorhininae). As a clade, Whaitsiidae has been restricted to therocephalians closest to ''Theriognathus'' (the senior synonym of ''Whaitsia''). As such, ''Moschowhaitsia'' is a member of Whaitsiidae as cladistically defined, and is one of the clade's only representatives from Laurasia. A cladogram depicting the relationships of both ''M. vjuschkovi'' and ''M. lidaqingi'' is shown below, reproduced from Liu & Abdala (2023) and simplified to show the relationships of whaitsioid therocephalians: The strict-consensus tree shown above did not recover ''M. vjuschkovi'' and ''M. lidaqingi'' as each other's sister taxa (found as such in only six of the 30 most parsimonious (i.e. shortest) trees). However, Liu and Abadala (2023) nonetheless assigned ''M. lidaqingi'' to ''Moschognathus'' as both species show more similarities to each other in morphology than either does to other whaitsiids. Such traits include the number of incisors and postcanine teeth, rugose bone on the front edge of the orbit, and a notch in the maxilla in front of the canine.

References

Whaitsiidae Prehistoric synapsids of Europe Prehistoric synapsids of Asia Permian synapsids Fossil taxa described in 1963 Therocephalia genera {{paleo-therapsid-stub

Classification and taxonomy

See also

References