| Cacops Temporal range: Early Permian, 274–271 Ma |
|
|---|---|
| Skeleton of Cacops aspidephorus in the Field Museum | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | †Temnospondyli |
| Family: | †Dissorophidae |
| Subfamily: | †Cacopinae |
| Genus: | †Cacops Williston, 1910 |
| Species | |
Cacops is a genus of dissorophid temnospondyl that is known from the Early Permian of the central United States.
It was about 40 centimetres (16 in) long and well adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle, with a heavily built skull, strong legs, a short tail, and a row of armor plates along its back. Compared to other dissorophids, it has an enormous otic notch in the back of the skull enclosed with a bony bar, indicating a large eardrum. Edwin Colbert suggests that perhaps it was a nocturnal animal like modern frogs. Cacops was first named by American paleontoligist Samuel Wendell Williston with the description of the type species C. aspidephorus from Texas in 1910. A second species, C. morrisi, was named from Oklahoma in 2009.[1]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||