Lycaenops Pronunciation
Picture, name meaning, and how to say Lycaenops. Free guide for kids and parents.
How to Pronounce Lycaenops
ly-SEE-en-ops
ALL CAPS = stressed syllable
What does Lycaenops mean?
Wolf face
Name Roots
"lykos"
wolf, from Ancient Greek
"ops"
face or appearance, from Ancient Greek
Fun Facts
- ✓Lycaenops lived approximately 260 to 252 million years ago, placing it in the Middle to early Late Permian period, tens of millions of years before the first true dinosaurs walked the Earth.
- ✓Despite looking somewhat like a wolf, Lycaenops belonged to a group called Gorgonopsia, which were therapsids, the lineage that would eventually give rise to all mammals including humans.
- ✓Lycaenops had a pair of enormous saber-like canine teeth that it almost certainly used to stab and kill prey much like a saber-toothed cat millions of years later, a striking case of evolutionary parallel.
- ✓All known Lycaenops fossils come from the Karoo Basin of South Africa, one of the greatest treasure troves of Permian fossils on the entire planet, where thousands of therapsid bones have been recovered.
- ✓The entire Gorgonopsia group, including Lycaenops, was wiped out during the Permian-Triassic mass extinction around 252 million years ago, the single deadliest extinction event in Earth's history, which killed roughly 90 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of land vertebrates.
