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Lycaenops ornatus
Lycanenops ornatus (after Broom 1930)
Lycaenops was a medium-sized gorgonopsian from the Late Permian in South Africa. The name Lycaenops means "wolf face." It belongs to the class Synapsida, the order Therapsida, the suborder Gorgonopsia, and the family Gorgonopsidae.
The first named species of this genus was Lycaenops ornatus, whose type specimen was a nearly complete skeleton found by Broom in 1920 near Biejespoort, South Africa. Stratigraphically, it was at the very top of the Endothiodon zone (259-254 mya), within the Teekloof Formation of the Karoo Basin. The skeleton was nearly intact, a rarity for Gorgonopsia fossils (Broom 1930; Colbert 1948).
Another species, Lycaenops angusticep, was disovered by Broom in the Cistecephalus Zone of the Karoo Basin, dated at about 257-255 mya. The Holotype is AMNH 5537, at the American Museum of Natural History.
The skull
length of these dominant carnivores was 30 cm, while their body length
was about 2 m. Lycaenops and other gorgonopsids had enlarged canines, analagous to those of the much later saber-toothed cats (Smilodon fatalis) from the Late Pleistocene period. According to Gebauer (2007), Lycaenops and related Late Permian gorgonopsids occupied much the same ecological niche as the saber-tooth cats, as the top predators.
References:
Broom; R. 1913. On a nearly perfect skull of a new species of the gorgonopsia: Annals of the South African Museum; v. 12; part 1; p. 8-10.
Broom, R. 1930. On the structure of the mammal-like reptiles of the sub-order Gorgonopsia. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, Ser. B, 218, pp. 345-371.
Colbert, E.H. 1948. The mammal-like reptile Lycaenops. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 89, pp. 357-404.
Gebauer, E.V.I. 2007. Phylogeny
and evolution of the Gorgonopsia with a special reference to the skull
and skeleton of GPIT/RE/7113 ('Aelurognathus?' parringtoni) Ph.D. thesis, Tübingen: Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen.
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