page_title: Thliptosaurus
section_title: History of discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Thliptosaurus / History of discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Holotype of Thliptosaurus imperforatus (BP/1/2796) in (A) right lateral and (B) left lateral views. Scale bar equals 1 cm.
context_page_description: Thliptosaurus is an extinct genus of small kingoriid dicynodont from the latest Permian period of the Karoo Basin in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It contains the type and only known species T. imperforatus. Thliptosaurus is from the upper Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone, making it one of the youngest Permian dicynodonts known, living just prior to the Permian mass extinction. It also represents one of the few small bodied dicynodonts to exist at this time, when most other dicynodonts had large body sizes and many small dicynodonts had gone extinct. The unexpected discovery of Thliptosaurus in a region of the Karoo outside of the historically sampled localities suggests that it may have been part of an endemic local fauna not found in these historic sites. Such under-sampled localities may contain 'hidden diversities' of Permian faunas that are unknown from traditional samples. Thliptosaurus is also unusual for dicynodonts as it lacks a pineal foramen, suggesting that it played a much less important role in thermoregulation than it did for other dicynodonts.
context_section_description: The holotype and only known specimen of Thliptosaurus, BP/1/2796, was discovered and collected by palaeontologist James Kitching in September, 1958 on an expedition at Stoffelton in western KwaZulu-Natal, near the town of Bulwer. This site records exposures of the Permian Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone (AZ) and Triassic Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone across the Permo-Triassic boundary, and while of scientific importance has been relatively unexplored and under-sampled compared to more historically recognised localities in the Karoo Basin. Indeed, much of the specimens from this site were collected by Kitching himself, and many of them remain as yet unprepared and unstudied. The fossil can be recognised as belonging to the Permian Daptocephalus AZ by the light grey colour of the fossil bones and grey siltstone matrix surrounding them (contrasted with the yellow bones and red matrix of Triassic fossils). The specimen was not described until 2019 by palaeontologist Christian Kammerer, who diagnosed it as its own new distinct genus of dicynodont. The holotype is held in the collections of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa.
  The single skull of Thliptosaurus is nearly complete, but it has been severely crushed and flattened from top-to-bottom (dorsoventrally), and some broken areas of bone at the back of the skull have been restored using plaster. Details and sutures on the top of the skull are readily visible, but poor preservation and over-preparation have obliterated features on the sides and rear of the skull. The lower jaw is firmly occluded to the upper jaw, obscuring some details of the sides of the skull and many of the palate.
  The generic name is from the Ancient Greek θλῖψις (thlipsis) and σαῦρος (saurus), literally translated to mean "compressed lizard", referring to the flattened nature of the skull from being severely dorsoventrally compressed during fossilisation. The name also alludes to the Biblical thlipsis, the name given to a period of great tribulations accompanying the End Times, as a play on the taxon's existence just before the Permian mass extinction, also known as the Great Dying. The specific name is from the Latin imperforatus, meaning "unpunctured", referring to the greatly reduced pineal foramen in the roof of the skull, if it is not entirely absent altogether.
caption: Skull of Thliptosaurus in lateral views highlighting the severity of the dorsoventral crushing.
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