Cacops

Skeletal reconstruction from Cacops in the Field Museum of Natural History

• Texas
• Oklahoma

• Cacops aspidephorus
• Cacops morrisi

Cacops is an extinct genus of terrestrial vertebrates from the group of Temnospondyli. Your more than 270 million years old fossil remains have been found in the United States in deposits of the Permian. The type species, Cacops aspidephorus, was described in 1910 by Samuel Wendell Williston, another way Cacops morrisi, 2009 by Reisz et al ..

Description and paleobiology

Cacops reached a length of 40 cm. His physique shows clear signs that he was, in contrast to many other Temnospondylen, strongly adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle. The skull was solidly built. The legs were strong, the tail was short. Cacops had a series of bony plates on the back, which were embedded in the skin. Compared with other Dissorophiden Cacops had a relatively large otic notch in the rear part of the skull. Show the size of this structure as well as a fine striations along its outer edge that Cacops had a tympanic membrane, this being the oldest unequivocal evidence of tympanic membrane in the fossil record at the time of description.

Edwin Colbert suspected that Cacops was nocturnal, similar to today's frogs and toads.

System

Cacops was a representative of Dissorophidae family. Its closest relative is Kamacops; both are combined to the subfamily Cacopinae. Another close relative might be Aspidosaurus. The sister taxon of Cacopinae is the subfamily Dissorophinae with the genera Dissorophus and Broiliellus. The close relationship of Cacops and other Dissorophiden is shown in the following cladogram (after Reisz et al, 2009. )

Amphibamidae

Trematopidae

Platyhystrix

Ecolsonia

Broiliellus

Dissorophus

Cacops

Kamacops

Swell

• Edwin H. Colbert: Evolution of the Vertebrates, John Wiley & Sons Inc ( 2nd ed ), 1969