Styracocephalus

Styracocephalus platyrhynchus ('spike head') is an extinct species of tapinocephalian therapsids that lived during the Guadalupian epoch.

Styracocephalus
Temporal range: Capitanian,
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Clade: Therapsida
Suborder: †Dinocephalia
Family: †Styracocephalidae
Genus: †Styracocephalus
Haughton, 1929
Species:
†S. platyrhynchus
Binomial name
†Styracocephalus platyrhynchus
Haughton, 1929
Styracocephalus

Styracocephalus's head ornament meant that it could be recognised from a distance. The most striking feature of Styracocephalus are the large backward-protruding tabular horns.[1]

The crest stuck upwards and backwards, but there is some variation in its shape, and this suggests that it changed throughout life and that it may be sexually dimorphic. Styracocephalus was a herbivore that may have been fully terrestrial or partly aquatic like the modern hippopotamus. It may have evolved from the estemmenosuchids.

Its remains are known from South Africa but it probably had a wider distribution.

It was around 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) in length,[2] with a 42-centimetre-long (17 in), 29-centimetre-wide (11 in) skull.[3]

Anteosauria

Estemmenosuchus

Styracocephalus

Jonkeria

Tapinocephalidae

Phylogeny of Dinocephalia after Fraser-King et al. 2019 showing the position of Styracocephalus[4]

See also

References
  1. S. H. Haughton, 1929, "On some new therapsid genera", pg. 55
  2. "Torvosaurus - Facts and Pictures". 15 January 2016.
  3. S. H. Haughton, 1929, "On some new therapsid genera", pg. 55
  4. Fraser-King, Simon W; Day, Michael O; Rubidge, Bruce S (2019). "Cranial morphology and phylogenetic relationship of the enigmatic dinocephalian Styracocephalus platyrhynchus from the Karoo Supergroup, South Africa". Palaeontologia africana. 54: 14–29. ISSN 2410-4418.


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