Moschops
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Order: Therapsida
Suborder: Dinocephalia
Family: Tapinocephalidae

Fossil range: Middle Permian

[Photo] Life restoration of Moschops capensis; a Tapinocephalian from the Middle Permian of South Africa, pencil drawing. Date: March 13, 2007. Author: Arthur Weasley (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ArthurWeasley).

Copyright (C) 2007 Arthur Weasley Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

Moschops (meaning calf face) was a prehistoric mammal-like reptile (therapsid) which lived in the Middle Permian, some 255 million years ago. Its remains were found in the Karoo region of South Africa.

Body
It was the largest animal in the area at the time, with a body length of around 5 m (16 ft). It was heavily built and quadrupedal. It was a herbivore with short, peglike teeth.

Skull
It had a thickened skull and many scientists believed that animals competed with each other by bashing their heads together; mountain sheep use a similar method (though some scientists suggest that the heavy skull on the find may be a result of a disease). A short, but heavy tail may have counter-balanced its large head if the thick skull was a natural occurrence. It was probably the main source of food for other predatory therapsids in the area.

Ecology
His predators probably were Lycaenops and Titanosuchus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moschops

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