Arctognathus

Arctognathus Temporal range: Permian
Life restoration of A. curvimola
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Synapsida
Order:	Therapsida
Family:	†Gorgonopsidae
Genus:	†Arctognathus Broom, 1911
Species
†A. curvimola (Owen, 1876 [originally Lycosaurus curvimola]) (type)
Synonyms
Arctognathoides Boonstra, 1934 Lycaenodontoides Haughton, 1924

Arctognathus is an extinct genus of gorgonopsid that throve during the Late Permian in the Karoo basin of what is now South Africa.^[1]

Discovery

1886 illustration of a A. curvimola skull

A carnivore, like all gorgonopsid, Arctognathus was given its name ("Bear jaw") in reference to its short and rounded snout. There is only one recognized species, A. curvimola.^[2]

Description

It was a small gorgonopsid with a total length estimated at 1.1 m and an 18 cm skull.^[3]

Classification

Restoration of A. curvimola in environment

Head of A. curvimola

Below is a cladogram from the phylogenetic analysis of Gebauer (2007):^[4]

Gorgonopsia	Aloposaurus Cyonosaurus Aelurosaurus Gorgonopsidae Scylacognathus Eoarctops Gorgonops Njalila Lycaenops Arctognathus Inostrancevia Rubidgeinae Aelurognathus Rubidgea Sycosaurus Clelandina

See also

• List of synapsids

References

1. Sidor 2003, p. 606
2. Christian F. Kammerer (2014) Cranial osteology of Arctognathus curvimola, a short-snouted gorgonopsian from the Late Permian of South Africa. Papers in Palaeontology (advance online publication) DOI: 10.1002/spp2.1002 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/spp2.1002/abstract
3. https://sites.google.com/site/palaeocritti/by-group/gorgonopsia/arctognathus
4. 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) (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). Tübingen: Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen. pp. 1–316.

Bibliography

• Kemp, T.S. (September 4, 1969). "On the Functional Morphology of the Gorgonopsid Skull" (PDF). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 256 (801): 1–83. Bibcode:1969RSPTB.256....1K. doi:10.1098/rstb.1969.0036. Retrieved October 2011.
• Sidor, Christian A. (2003). "Evolutionary trends and the origin of the mammalian lower jaw" (PDF). Paleobiology 29 (4): 605–640. doi:10.1666/0094-8373(2003)029<0605:etatoo>2.0.co;2. Retrieved October 2011.