Nanictidops
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (August 2024) |
| Nanictidops Temporal range: Late Permian
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| Holotype skull in (A) dorsal and (B) right lateral views; section of skull (indicated in B) in (C) dorsal and (D) ventral views. Scale bar = 2 cm | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Synapsida |
| Clade: | Therapsida |
| Clade: | †Therocephalia |
| Family: | †Nanictidopidae |
| Genus: | †Nanictidops Broom, 1940 |
| Type species | |
| Nanictidops kitchingi Broom, 1940
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Nanictidops is an extinct genus of therocephalian therapsids from the Late Permian of South Africa's Karoo Supergroup, containing the single species Nanictidops kitchingi. Together with the closely related Russian genus Purlovia, it is a member of the family Nanictidopidae. The holotype and only specimen, RC 49, is part of the Rubidge collection in Graaf-Reinet, where it was originally found.[1]
Description
[edit]The skull was short and wide with enormous canines and post-canines. Although it and Purlovia were considered related and classified as the only two members of Nanictidopidae by Ivakhnenko 2011 as they shared a wide temporal region, Liu and Abdala 2020 found little relation between the two genera and instead classifies Nanictidops as the basalmost member of Baurioidea, while Purlovia forms an exclusively Laurasian clade with the Chinese Caodeyao instead.[1]