Gorgonops
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| Gorgonops | ||||||||||||
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Live reconstruction of Gorgonops whaitsii |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Perm | ||||||||||||
| 255 to 251 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Gorgonops | ||||||||||||
| Owen , 1876 | ||||||||||||
Gorgonops was a mammal-like reptile and one of the last representatives of the Gorgonopsia on the supercontinent Pangea . It lived exclusively carnivorous and died out on the Permian - Triassic border. Gorgonops was first described by Richard Owen in 1876. There are six known species in the genus Gorgonops .
features
The head was, as with many other Gorgonopsiden, very long, relatively narrow (especially the front part of the skull) and he reached up to 34 centimeters in length. The muzzle was as wide as it was high and the cranial arches were relatively narrow. He also had the typical saber teeth, up to twelve centimeters long, which many other animals, for example the smilodon , were to get. The legs were adapted for fast running and, in contrast to reptiles like Scutosaurus , sat under the body.
Systematics
Gorgonops is the namesake of the Gorgonopsidae , the only family of the Gorgonopsia. Gorgonopsia were all carnivores and probably also scavengers. The Gorgonopsia belonged to both smaller genera such as Lycaenops and large ones such as Inostrancevia . They belong to the Theriodontia (specialized, mainly carnivorous Therapsida , formerly also known as "mammal-like reptiles").
literature
- Tim Haines and Paul Chambers: Dinosaurs - giants of the primeval world . Franckh-Kosmos, 2007, pp. 44 f., ISBN 978-3-440-10961-8
