Syodon
| Syodon | ||||||||||||
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Life picture of Syodon |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Middle Perm ( Capitanium ) | ||||||||||||
| 265.4 to 260.8 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Syodon | ||||||||||||
| Kutorga , 1838 | ||||||||||||
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Syodon ( Greek. Pig tooth from σῦς " pig " and ὀδούς " tooth ") was a genus of small to medium-sized, probably omnivorous Therapsid (early relatives of modern mammals) from the late Guadalupium ( capitanian ) in Russia. The first description of the type species Syodon biarmicum was written by the Russian scientist Stepan Semjonowitsch Kutorga on the basis of a single fang .
The fossils of the type species come from the copper sandstone of the western Urals , further specimens were found near Ischejewo in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan . The Russian paleontologist Yuri Alexandrowitsch Orlow described another species , Syodon efremovi , in 1940 , which, however, has not been adequately preserved and is probably a synonym for Syodon biarmicum or a juvenile specimen of Titanophoneus .
anatomy
Syodon biarmicum is preserved with two skulls , one of them with a lower jaw and various postcranial elements. The skull had a length of 22 centimeters, due to which the total body length of the animal is estimated at about 1.2 meters.
The eye sockets were quite large, which suggests a nocturnal animal. The temporal openings resembled those of the Titanophoneus with a large and thick postorbital for the attachment of the adductor muscles. The opening of the parietal eye sat on a thickening formed from the frontal bone and parietal bone.
Some vertebrae that were found indicate that apart from the different sizes, there were only minor anatomical differences to Titanophoneus . The slender thigh bones show the characteristic features of the Brithopodidae and already differ significantly from those of the pelycosaurs .
The characteristic fangs were rounded and curved. They already strongly resembled the tusks of mammals, which Kutorga recognized. Kutorga was the first to point out the similarities between therapsids and modern mammals.
Syodon was closely related to the Australosyodon found in South Africa .
Synonyms
Cliorhizodon ( Twelvetrees , 1880) and Deuterosaurus seeleyi ( Nopcsa ) are junior synonyms of Syodon . Notosyodon ( Tschudinow , 1968) is probably also a synonym for Syodon .