Cynodraco
Genus of therapsids
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cynodraco,[a] also spelled Cynodracon or Cynodrakon,[1] is a dubious genus of non-mammalian therapsid, probably gorgonopsian, from the late Permian of South Africa. Two species of the genus have been named, Cynodraco serridens and Cynodraco major.[2] Its fossils have been found in the Cistecephalus Assemblage Zone,[3] which dates to the Wuchiapingian age of the late Permian.[4] Cynodraco was one of the first gorgonopsian taxa named, alongside Gorgonops and Lycosaurus, which were named in the same publication.[5]
| Cynodraco Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Synapsida |
| Clade: | Therapsida |
| Clade: | †Gorgonopsia |
| Genus: | †Cynodraco Owen, 1876 |
| Type species | |
| Cynodraco serridens Owen, 1876 | |
| Other species | |
| |
History of discovery
Fossils of Cynodraco were discovered in the Karoo of South Africa by Andrew Geddes Bain,[6] who gave them to the British Museum in 1853.[7] Richard Owen described Cynodraco on the basis of these fossils in 1876 and classified them in two species: Cynodraco serridens and Cynodraco major.[2] In one of his two 1876 papers on the genus, he spells it Cynodraco;[8] in the other, he spells it Cynodracon.[2] Owen found the mammalian characters of the humerus of Cynodraco and the similarity of its teeth to those of the saber-toothed cat Machairodus to be remarkable.[9] Seeley later noted that the humerus could not be proved to belong to the same species as the skull fragments on which the genus is based.[10] In 1890, Richard Lydekker regarded C. serridens as the type species of the genus and synonymized C. major with it.[11] Denise Sigogneau-Russell regarded Cynodraco as a possible gorgonopsian of uncertain affinity,[12][3] an identification which remains accepted.[1]
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