Phorcys
Name: Phorcys
(named after the father of the gorgons in Ancient Greek Mythology).
Phonetic: For-sis.
Named By: C. F. Kammerer & B. S.
Rubidge - 2022.
Classification: Chordata, Synapsida,
Therapsida, Gorgonopsia.
Species: P. dubei (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Uncertain but skull thought to have been
possibly up to 30 centimetres long when whole.
Known locations: South Africa - Tapinocephalus
Assemblage Zone.
Time period: Guadalupian of the Permian.
Fossil representation: Partial skulls.
Phorcys
is a genus of gorgonopsid
therapsid that lived in South Africa during
the Permian. When named, Phorcys was described
from a partial skull
that revealed much of the posterior section but none of the
anterior. Nonetheless these skulsl could still be compared to better
preserved specimens of relative gorgonopsid genera. This led to a
reconstructed estimate that the skull of Phorcys,
when complete,
may have approached somewhere up to thirty centimetres in length.
Inferred by skull size alone, this would make Phorcys
one of the
biggest and most powerful predators of its era.
Further reading
- The earliest
gorgonopsians from the Karoo Basin of South Africa. - Journal of
African Earth Sciences - C. F. Kammerer & B. S.
Rubidge - 2022.
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