Anteosaurus and Pampaphoneus

Anteosaurus magnificus (Watson 1921, BMNH R 3595) Middle Permian, skull length 80cm, est 5 m length was a larger descendant of Titanophoneus, with a similar post-crania. The skull was tall and narrow, about 30 in (80 cm) in length. The frontals and postfrontals were raised and thickened into skull bosses for ramming each other. The palatine and pterygoid teeth are confined to circles, plust the transverse processes of the pterygoid. The incisors feature a ledge on the medial side. The canines are huge.

Antepsaurian skulls. Starting with Syodon, these bulky herbivores tended to shorten the tail and thicken the skull. Various groups produce different sorts of thickened skulls, Anteosaurus among them.

Juvenile? Anteosaurus? (Kruger 2014; Kruger, Ribidge and Abdala 2017; BP/1/7074) In her PhD dissertation, Kruger wrote, "Because of its relatively large orbits, the unfused nature of its sutures, and the lack of replacement teeth in the dental alveoli, the specimen is considered to be a juvenile Anteosaurus magnificus. The juvenile Anteosaurus (BP/1/7074) manifests many features of both Syodon and Titanophoneus, it is suggested that ontogenetic growth of Anteosaurus follows Haeckel’s Law."

Here this specimen nests with Australosyodon, not Anteosaurus. Titanophoneus is a closer match to Anteosaurus.

Boonstra LD 1963. Diversity within the South African Dinocephalia. S. Afr. J. Sci. 59: 196-206.

Cisneros JC et al (5 co-authors) 2012. Carnivorous dinocephalian from the Middle Permian of Brazil and tetrapod dispersal in Pangaea. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1115975109

Kammerer CF 2011. Systematics of the Anteosauria (Therapsida: Dinocephalia).
–Journal of Systematic Paleontology: Vol. 9, #2, pp. 261-304.

Watson, DMS 1921. The Bases of Classification of the Theriodontia: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1921: 35-98.

wiki/Anteosaurus
wiki/Pampaphoneus

Therapsida

Cutleria

Anomodontia

Hipposaurus

Stenocybus

Galechirus - Galepus

Patranomodon

Eodicynodon - Dicynodon

Suminia