Therocephalia

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Therocephalians
Temporal range:
Ma
Possible descendant taxon
Cynodontia
survives to present
Life restoration of two representatives of the early therocephalian genus Alopecognathus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Clade: Therapsida
Clade: Eutheriodontia
Clade: †Therocephalia
Broom, 1903
Subtaxa

Therocephalia is an

paraphyletic
in relation to cynodonts.

The fossils of therocephalians are numerous in the

reptiles — mostly archosaurs and their close relatives, including archosauromorphs and archosauriforms
.

Anatomy and physiology

Head reconstruction of Lycosuchus, an early therocephalian

Like the

carnivores. The earlier therocephalians were, in many respects, as primitive as the gorgonopsians, but they did show certain advanced features. There is an enlargement of the temporal opening for broader jaw adductor muscle attachment and a reduction of the phalanges (finger and toe bones) to the mammalian phalangeal formula. The presence of an incipient secondary palate in advanced therocephalians is another feature shared with mammals. The discovery of maxilloturbinal ridges in forms such as the primitive therocephalian Glanosuchus, suggests that at least some therocephalians may have been warm-blooded.[1]

The later therocephalians included the advanced

ictidosaurs and even some early mammals arose from a baurioid therocephalian stem. Mammalian characteristics such as this seem to have evolved in parallel among a number of different therapsid groups, even within Therocephalia.[1]

lycosuchid on display in the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley

Several more specialized lifestyles have been suggested for some therocephalians. Many small forms, like ictidosuchids, have been interpreted as aquatic animals. Evidence for aquatic lifestyles includes

herbivores.[2]

Many small therocephalians have small pits on their snouts that probably supported

genera Euchambersia and Ichibengops, dating from the Lopingian, particularly attract the attention of paleontologists, because the fossil skulls attributed to them have some structures which suggests that these two animals had organs for distributing venom.[4][5]

Classification

.
Fossilized skull of Gorynychus, one of the most basal therocephalians identified to date

The therocephalians evolved as one of several lines of non-mammalian

paraphyletic relative to cynodonts. Historically, cynodonts are often proposed to descend from (or are closest to) the therocephalian family Whaitsiidae under this hypothesis, however a 2024 study instead found support for a sister relationship between cynodonts and Eutherocephalia.[6] The oldest known therocephalians first appear in the fossil record at the same time as other major therapsid groups, including the Gorgonopsia, which they resemble in many primitive features. For example, many early therocephalians possess long canine teeth similar to those of gorgonopsians. The therocephalians, however, outlasted the gorgonopsians, persisting into the early-Middle Triassic period as small weasel-like carnivores and cynodont-like herbivores.[7]

While common ancestry with cynodonts (and, thus, mammals) accounts for many similarities between these groups, some scientists believe that other similarities may be better attributed to

phalangeal formula, and some form of a secondary palate in most taxa. Therocephalians and cynodonts both survived the Permian-Triassic mass extinction; but, while therocephalians soon became extinct, cynodonts underwent rapid diversification. Therocephalians experienced a decreased rate of cladogenesis, meaning that few new groups appeared after the extinction. Most Triassic therocephalian lineages originated in the Late Permian, and lasted for only a short period of time in the Triassic,[8] going extinct during the late Anisian.[9]

Taxonomy

Moschorhinus life restoration, an akidnognathid

Therocephalia was first named and conceived of by

dinocephalians. From 1903 to 1907 Broom added more therocephalian genera, as well as some non-therocephalians, to this group, including the anomodont Galechirus. The latter's inclusion highlighted Broom's view of therocephalians as 'primitive' and ancestral to other therapsids, believing anomodonts to be descended from a therocephalian-like ancestor such as Galechirus. However, by 1908 he considered its and some other non-therocephalian's inclusions to the group to be doubtful. In 1913, Broom reinstated Gorgonopsia as distinct from Therocephalia, but for many decades after there was still confusion from him and other researchers over wich genera beloned to which group. The group's rank also varied from order, suborder and infraorder depending on authors' preferred therapsid systematics.[10]

At the same time, the small 'advanced' therocephalians now classified under Baurioidea were often regarded as belonging to their own subgroup of therapsids distinct from therocephalians, the

Bauriamorpha.[11] Bauriamorphs were classified separately from therocephalians for many decades, though were often inferred to have evolved from therocephalians in parallel with cynodonts, each typically from different therocephalian stock.[10] The inclusion of baurioids under Therocephalia was only firmly established in the 1980s, namely by Kemp (1982) and Hopson and Barghusen (1986).[12][13]

Megawhaitsia head restoration, a whaitsiid

Various therocephalian subgroups and clades have been proposed since the group was named, although their contents and nomenclature have often been highly unstable and some previously recognized therocephalian clades have turned out to be artificial or based upon

Scaloposauridae
was based on fossils with mostly juvenile characteristics and is likely represented by immature specimens from other disparate therocephalian families.

In another example, the name 'Pristerognathidae' was extensively used for a group of basal therocephalians for much of the 20th century, but it has since been recognised that the name Scylacosauridae holds precedent for this group. Furthermore, the scope of 'Pristerognathidae' was unstable and variably was limited to an individual subgroup of early therocephalians (alongside others such as Lycosuchidae, Alopecodontidae, and Ictidosauridae) to encompassing the entirety of early therocephalians.[10] Similarly, various names have been used for therocephalians corresponding to the family Adkidnognathidae in 20th century literature, including Annatherapsididae, Euchambersiidae (the oldest available name) and Moschorhinidae, and members have often had a confused relationship to whaitsiids. Consensus on the name and contents of Akidnognathidae was only achieved in the 21st century, asserting that a family-level group is established on the oldest referable genus and thus Akidnognathidae takes precedent for this group of non-whaitsioid eutherocephalians.[11]

On the other hand, some groups previously thought to be artificial have turned out to be valid. The aberrant therocephalian family Lycosuchidae, once identified by the presence of multiple functional

synapomorphies supporting the monophyly of this group (including delayed caniniform replacement), and Lycosuchidae is currently considered a valid basal clade within Therocephalia.[15] However, most genera included in the group have since been declared dubious, and it now only includes Lycosuchus and Simorhinella.[16]

Regisaurus life restoration, a baurioid

Modern therocephalian taxonomy is instead based upon

Chthonosauridae, Hofmeyriidae, Whaitsiidae are recognised, along with various subclades grouped under Baurioidea. However, while individual groups of therocephalians are broadly recognised as valid, the interrelationships between them are often poorly supported.[17][18][19]
As such, there are few higher-level named clades uniting the multiple subclades, with the exceptions of Whaitsiioidea (uniting Hofmeyriidae and Whaitsiidae) and Baurioidea.

Phylogeny

Early phylogenetic analyses of therocephalians, such as that of Hopson and Barghusen (1986) and van den Heever (1994), recovered and validated many of the therocephalian subtaxa mentioned above in a phylogenetic context. However, the higher-level relationships were difficult to resolve, particularly between the subclades of Eutherocephalia (i.e. Hofmeyriidae, Akidnognathidae, Whaitsiidae and Baurioidea). For example, Hopson and Barghusen (1986) could only recover Eutherocephalia as an unresolved polytomy.[13] Despite these shortcomings, subsequent discussions of therocephalian relationships relied almost exclusively on these analyses.[11] Later analyses focused on the relationships of early cynodonts, namely Abdala (2007) and Botha et al. (2007), included some therocephalian taxa and supported the existence of Eutherocephalia, but also found cynodonts to be the sister taxon to the whaitsiid therocephalian Theriognathus and thus rendering Therocephalia paraphyletic.[20][21]

Later phylogenetic analyses of therocephalians, initiated by Huttenlocker (2009), emphasise using a broader selection of therocephalian taxa and characters. Such analyses have reinforced Therocephalia as a sister clade to cynodonts, and the monophyly of Therocephalia has been supported by subsequent researchers.[11][7]

Below is a cladogram modified from an analysis published by Christian A. Sidor, Zoe. T Kulik and Adam K. Huttenlocker in 2022, simplified to illustrate the relationships of the major recognised therocephalian subclades.[22] It is based on the data matrix first published by Huttenlocker et al. (2011),[8] and represents the broad topologies found by other iterations of this dataset, such as Sigurdsen et al. (2012), Huttenlocker et al. (2014), and Liu and Abdala (2022).[23][24][17] An example of the lability of these relationships is demonstrated by Liu and Abdala (2023), who recovered an alternative topology with Chthonosauridae nested deeply within Akidnognathidae.[25]

Therapsida
 

Below is a cladogram modified from Pusch et al. (2024) analysing the relationships of therocephalians and early cynodonts. Their analysis focused on including endocranial characteristics to help resolve the relations of therocephalians and cynodonts to supplement previous analyses that relied almost entirely on superficial cranial and dental characteristics that are subject to convergent evolution, and as such only includes taxa with available applicable data. Of these, only four therocephalians could be included. However, they each represent four major groups within therocephalian phylogeny: the two 'basal therocephalians' Lycosuchus (Lycosuchidae) and Alopecognathus (Scylacosauridae) and two derived members of Eutherocephalia, Olivierosuchus (Akidnognathidae) and Theriognathus (Whaitsiidae).[6]

Notably, their analyses consistently found cynodonts and eutherocephalians to be sister taxa, with the basal therocephalians Lycosuchus and scylacosaurids in a more basal position, rendering therocephalians as they are traditionally conceived paraphyletic. This differs from previous proposals of a paraphyletic Therocephalia which typically regarded cynodonts as being closest to derived whaitsiid therocephalians.[6]

Theriodontia 
Traditional therocephalians

See also

References

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  13. ^ a b Hopson, J. A.; Barghusen, H (1986). "An analysis of therapsid relationships". In Hotton, N.; MacLean, P. D.; Roth, J. J.; Roth, E. C. (eds.). The ecology and biology of mammal-like reptiles. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 83–106.
  14. ^ van den Heever, J. A. (1980). "On the validity of the therocephalian family Lycosuchidae (Reptilia, Therapsida)". Annals of the South African Museum. 81: 111–125.
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External links
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