Dicynodon
Name: Dicynodon
(Two dog teeth).
Phonetic: Die-cy-no-don.
Named By: Richard Owen - 1845.
Classification: Chordata, Synapsida,
Therapsida, Dicynodontia, Dicynodontidae.
Species: D. lacerticeps (type),
D.
angielczyki, D.
bolorhinus, D. leoniceps, D. leontops, D. lissops, D.
osborni, D. plateceps, D. trautscholdi, D. whaitsi.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Average 1.2 meters long, but some
variation between species.
Known locations: China, Russia, South Africa,
Tanzania.
Time period: Permian.
Fossil representation: Many specimens are known.
Whereas
Cistecephalus
was the 'Permian mole', Dicynodon appears to
have
been the 'Permian Rabbit', a title that Dicynodon
earned by the
large abundance of fossils. This abundance has led to a great many
species being named for the genus but as often happens, particularly
with extinct animals from the early days of palaeontology, many of
these species have been found to be synonymous with other species.
Dicynodon
was toothless save for two prominent tusks that pointed down from the
upper jaw on either side of a cropping beak. It was this beak that
was used to shear through vegetation. The tusks are seen as being
digging devices for the purpose of exposing the roots and tubers of
plants to the beak. It is these tusks and herbivorous lifestyle that
has led to Dicynodon, or at least a therapsid
very much like it, as
being considered the ancestor to the later and larger dicynodonts of
the Triassic like Lystrosaurus
and Kannemeyeria.
Further reading
- On some new genera and species of anomodont reptiles from the Karroo
beds of South Africa - Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London
647-674 - R. Broom - 1921.
- On a collection of Karroo vertebrates from Tanganyika Territory. -
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 88(4):634-671 -
S. H. Haughton - 1932.
- On some new genera and species of Karroo fossil reptiles, with notes
on some others. - Annals of the Transvaal Museum 18:349-386 - R. Broom
- 1936.
- Phylogenetic analysis of Russian Permian dicynodonts (Therapsida:
Anomodontia): implications for Permian biostratigraphy and Pangaean
biogeography - Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 139 (2):
157−212 - Kenneth D. Angielczyk & Audrey A. Kurkin - 2003.
- A comprehensive taxonomic revision of Dicynodon
(Therapsida,
Anomodontia) and its implications for dicynodont phylogeny,
biogeography, and biostratigraphy - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
31 (Suppl. 1): 1–158 - C. F. Kammerer, K. D. Angielczyk & J.
Fr�bisch - 2011.
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