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A relative of Cynognathus, Massetognathus was a plant-eating cynodont. This cynodont lived in what is now South America. It was about 50 cm long (1ft 8in) and it lived in the Late Triassic Period (220 mya). It had a cheek teeth specially adapted to chewing on vegetation. It still had the distinctive long snout of its cynodont relatives, with nipping incisors and fang-like canines, but its cheek teeth were not pointed. Instead they were flat-topped and were covered with a number of low ridges, which made them good for grinding any stems, roots and other plant material. Massetognathus had clawed feet and a long dog-like tail. Like most of its cynodont relatives, it may have been covered in hair. Some scientists say that Massetognathus was a traversodont, one of the plant-eating cynodonts.
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