Moschops

Moschops (Greek for "calf face") is an extinct genus of dinocephalian therapsids that lived in what is now South Africa during the Capitanian stage of the Middle Permian around 264.4–260 million years ago. Fossils have been found in the Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone of the Abrahamskraal Formation. Like other members of Tapinocephalidae, they were heavily built herbivores reaching a body mass of at least 400 kilograms (880 lb), and it has been debated whether or not they were semi-aquatic, like hippopotamuses. They had short, thick heads and are widely thought to have engaged in head-butting contests against rival individuals of the same species.

Earliest finds

Moschops material was first discovered in the Karoo region of South Africa, on the Spitzkop farmstead north of the town of Laingsburg by Robert Broom and the Reverend John Henry Whaits, and they were brought by Broom before the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1910. The geologic horizon of these remains was dubious, though Broom suggested that they were from the Permian upper Ecca Group (part of the Karoo Supergroup). He came to this conclusion based on the absence of pareiasaurs and the discovery of a single tooth resembling those remains. This initial material includes a holotype (AMNH 5550) and seven topotypes (AMNH 5551-5557). The degree of pachyostosis varies within the skulls of the specimens, and Broom believed this to have been linked to variations in sex and age.

Subsequent authors have concluded that the remains discovered by Broom and Whaits actually came from the Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone, dating to the Middle Permian.