Sauroctonus

Sauroctonus progressus

• Tatarstan (Russia)
• Tanzania

Sauroctonus is an extinct synapsides land vertebrate of the family of Gorgonopsidae that lived in the Late Permian. From the genus two species have been described, fossils of the type species Sauroctonus progressus were found in Tatarstan in Russia and described in 1955 by Alexey Bystrov. The second type comes from Tanzania, was first described as parringtoni Arctognathus and only later assigned to the genus Sauroctonus. The Gorgonopsidae among the Theriodontia, a group in which the ancestors of mammals can be found.

Features

Sauroctonus reached a body length of 1.2 to 1.5 meters, of which about 25 centimeters was attributable to the skull. He was thus a medium sized Gorgonopside. His skull was narrow, the eye sockets ( orbits ) small. In the upper jaw there are two strong elongated canines, were like those of saber-toothed cats ( Machairodontinae ). However, they were oval in cross section and not as flattened as the cats. The five incisors of the upper jaw were very small and sawn, behind the canines were four to six more teeth. Its basin was reptile -like with each other separate ilium ( ilium ), ischial ( ischium ) and pubis ( pubic ). Sauroctonus ran with laterally projecting legs, in typical reptiles Spreizgang. Probably Sauroctonus took a similar ecological niche, like the saber-toothed cats over 230 million years later living.

System

Within the Gorgonopsidae Sauroctonus belongs to the subfamily Gorgonopsinae that are characterized by some skull features, including a thickened zygomatic below do not differ from the other gorgonopsians. He was probably closely related to the South African genus Scylacops.