page_title: Cacops
section_title: Locomotion
hierarchical_section_title: Cacops / Paleobiology / Locomotion
caption_attribution_description: Cacops skeleton.
context_page_description: Cacops, a genus of dissorophid temnospondyls, is one of the most distinctive Paleozoic amphibians that diversified in the equatorial region of Pangea during the Kungurian stage of the early Permian. Dissorophids were a group of fully terrestrial, often heavily armored faunivores. This, along with their relatively large size and geographical range suggest that they were able to coexist with amniotes as predators during the early Permian. Dissorophidae has four distinct clades differentiated largely on the morphology of the osteoderms, the Eucacopinae, the Dissorophinae, the Aspidosaurinae, and the Platyhystricinae. Cacops is one of the few olsoniforms whose ontogeny is beginning to surface. Cacops fossils were almost exclusively known from the Cacops Bone Bed of the Lower Permian Arroyo Formation of Texas for much of the 20th century. New material collected from the Dolese Brothers Quarry, near Richards Spur, Oklahoma in the past few decades has been recovered, painting a clearer picture of what the animal looked and acted like.
context_section_description: The locomotion of Cacops aspidephorus has been explored through two studies by David Dilkes. Two series of osteoderms of the presacral vertebral column affect the biomechanics of the axial skeleton. Cacops have an internal series, which consist of an osteoderm fused to the distal tips of each neural spine and an external series, which lie dorsal to and between the segments of the internal series. The portions of the vertebral column with osteoderms had limited lateral flexion, thus limiting lateral movement. The authors suggested that Cacops may have had the ability to move forward in short running spurts or that it may have also used a symmetrical walk similar to modern crocodilians or salamanders, in which its body is supported by opposite movements of the front and hind limbs.
caption: Skeletal restoration by Williston
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