page_title: Anteosaur
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Anteosaur / Description
caption_attribution_description: Titanophoneus
context_page_description: Anteosaurs are a group of large, primitive carnivorous dinocephalian therapsids with large canines and incisors and short limbs, that are known from the Middle Permian of South Africa, Russia, China, and Brazil. Some grew very large, with skulls 50–80 centimetres long, and were the largest predators of their time. They died out at the end of the Middle Permian, possibly as a result of the extinction of the herbivorous Tapinocephalia on which they may have fed.
context_section_description: The Anteosauria are distinguished from the Tapinocephalia by a number of features, such as very large canines, cheek teeth with bulbous crowns, and an upturning of the premaxilla, so that the front of mouth curves strongly upwards. There is a tendency especially in more advanced forms such as Anteosaurus towards thickening of the bones of the top of the skull, indicating head-butting behaviour. There is a large canal for the pineal organ (third eye); probably tied in with the animal's diurnal and seasonal cycles.
  The shoulder girdle is fairly light, with a narrow interclavicle, clavicle, and scapular blade. The femur (thigh bone) is slender and curved. These were, in spite of their size, probably quite agile animals. The limbs are short and the skull long, narrow, and heavy. The tail is very long in at least some genera.
caption: Skeleton of Titanophoneus
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