| Sauroscaptor | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Synapsida |
| Clade: | Therapsida |
| Clade: | †Anomodontia |
| Clade: | †Dicynodontia |
| Family: | †Cistecephalidae |
| Genus: | †Sauroscaptor Kammerer, Bandyopadhyay, and Ray,2016 |
| Type species | |
| †S. tharavati Kammerer, Bandyopadhyay, and Ray,2016 | |
Sauroscaptor is a genus ofcistecephaliddicynodont from the upperPermian ofIndia, containing one species,S. tharavati. It is remarkable for the extreme placement of its pineal foramen, which bulges out of the posterior margin of its skull.
Sauroscaptor means "lizard mole" or "lizard digger", and is derived from the Greek wordσαῦρος, meaning "lizard", and the Greek word σκάπτω, meaning "digger", which is used as a suffix in the Indian mole generaEuroscaptor andParascaptor. The type species,S. tharavati, honors Tharavat S. Kutty, discoverer of theKundaram Formation fauna that includesSauroscaptor.
The fossils ofSauroscaptor show various forms of compression, and were originally interpreted as pertaining to several different genera of dicynodont. However, the shared presence of several unique traits not affected by compression proved that the fossils all belonged to a single endemic species.[1]
Sauroscaptor, like most cistecephalids, was a tuskless, small-bodied, fossorial dicyonodont.[1] The posterior margin of its pineal foramen bulges out from the back of the skull, resulting in a chimney-like nuchal crest continuous with the foramen. It has a significantly narrower skull table than is typical for cistecephalids. It is closely similar to an unnamed genus fromZambia, which shares the unusual pineal foramen position, but differ in the breadth of the skull table and morphology of the nuchal crest, as well as in the Zambian taxon being the only known tusked cisticephalid.
| Phylogenetic position ofSauroscaptor withinDiictodontia[1][2] |
Sauroscaptor is the basalmost known cistecephalid dicynodont.[1]
