page_title: Lycaenops
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Lycaenops / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Lycaenops up a tree with its prey; a small dicynodont, most likely robertia.
context_page_description: Lycaenops is a genus of carnivorous therapsids. It lived during the late mid-Permian to the early Late Permian, about 270.6-251 mya, in what is now South Africa.
context_section_description: Lycaenops measured about 1 m (3 ft) and weighed up to 15 kg (33 lb). Like the modern-day wolves from which it takes its name, Lycaenops had a long and slender skull, with a set of dog-like fangs set into both its upper and lower jaws. These pointed canine teeth were ideal for the use of stabbing and/or tearing at the flesh of any large prey that it came upon. Lycaenops most likely hunted small vertebrates such as reptiles and dicynodonts.
  Lycaenops walked and ran with its long legs held close to its body. This is a feature found in mammals, but not in more primitive amniotes, early reptiles, and synapsids such as pelycosaurs, whose legs are positioned to the sides of their bodies. The ability to move like a mammal would have given Lycaenops an advantage over other land vertebrates, since it would have been able to outrun them.
caption: Life restoration with dicynodont prey and speculative hair
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