Cacops
| Cacops Temporal range: Early Permian, Kungurian | |
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| Skeleton of Cacops aspidephorus in the Field Museum | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | "Amphibia" (wide sense) |
| Order: | †Temnospondyli |
| Family: | †Dissorophidae |
| Clade: | †Eucacopinae |
| Genus: | †Cacops Williston, 1910 |
| Species | |
Cacops is a genus of dissorophid temnospondyl that is known from the Kungurian stage of the Early Permian of the central United States.[1]
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 paleontologist 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]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Reisz, R.R.; Schoch, R.R.; and Anderson, J.S. (2009). "The armoured dissorophid Cacops from the Early Permian of Oklahoma and the exploitation of the terrestrial realm by amphibians". Naturwissenschaften 96 (7): 789–796. Bibcode:2009NW.....96..789R. doi:10.1007/s00114-009-0533-x.
- Colbert, E. H., (1969), Evolution of the Vertebrates, John Wiley & Sons Inc (2nd ed.)
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