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ANOMOCEPHALUS
(a-nom-o-sef-a-lus)
meaning: "Lawless head"
Anomocephalus
Named By: S. Modesto, B. Rubidge & J. Welman in 1999
Time Period: Middle Permian 260 Ma
Location: South Africa
Size: Skull 21 centimetres long. About 1 - 1.2 meters total body length
Diet: Herbivore
Fossil(s): Right side of the skull and fragmentary post cranial remains
Classification: | Chordata | Therapsida | Anomocephaloidea |
About

Anomocephalus is an extinct genus of primitive anomodont. It is primitive in that it retains a complete set of teeth in both jaws, in contrast to its descendants, the dicynodonts, whose dentition is reduced to only a single pair of tusks (and in many cases no teeth at all), with their jaws covered by a horny beak similar to that of a modern tortoise. However, they are in no way closely related.

Its discovery in 1999 from the earliest terrestrial rocks of Gondwana (from Williston in the Karoo of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa) has shown that this group of herbivores originated in Gondwana; not Laurasia, as had previously been supposed. It lived 260 million years ago during the Permian Period, in arid areas with rivers and lakes - almost like parts of modern-day Namibia or Botswana. It is closely related to Tiarajudens from Brazil.

Read more about Anomocephalus at Wikipedia
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