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| Lycaenops |
| Type |
Therapsid:Gorgonopsian |
| Length |
1m (3 feet) |
| Weight |
10-15 kg |
| Movement |
quadruped |
| Age |
258 million years ago |
| Diet |
carnivore - large therapsids and reptiles |
| Environment |
Desert, Semi-Desert, Open Woodland |
| Distribution |
South Africa |
Lycaenops ("Wolf-Face") was a lightly built-meat-eater with long legs. It measured about 3 feet (1 meter) long and lived during the late mid-Permian to the early Late Permian, living in what is now South Africa. Like modern-day wolves, Lycaenops bore a long and slender skull, with a set of dog-like fangs set into both its upper and lower jaws. These pointed canine teeth were ideal for the use of stabbing and/or tearing at the flesh of any large prey that it came upon. This species most likely hunted small vertebrates such as reptiles, small pelycosaurs, and dicynodonts such as Robertia and Cistecephalus, as well as larger dicynodonts. Lycaenops's may have belonged to packs, living and hunting those of its kind. Lycaenops walked and ran with its long legs held close to its body. This is a feature found on mammals, but not in more primitive amniotes and synapsids, such as the pelycosaurs and early reptiles whose legs are positioned to the sides of their bodies. The ability to move like a mammal would have given Lycaenops an advantage over other land vertebrates, since it would have able to out-run them.
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