Emydops
Emydops is an extinct genus of dicynodont therapsids from the Middle Permian to Late Permian of what is now South Africa. The genus is generally small and herbivorous, sharing the dicynodont synapomorphy of bearing two tusks. In the following years, the genus grew to include fourteen species. Many of these species were erected on the basis of differences in the teeth and the positioning of the frontal and parietal bones. A 2008 study narrowed Emydops down to two species, E. arctatus (first described by English paleontologist Richard Owen as Kistecephalus arctatus in 1876) and the newly described E. oweni. History and discovery Emydops was first discovered and named in 1912 by Robert Broom, in which he described the species E. minor. Although later on it was suggested that the genus included 13 more species, Frobisch and Reisz (2008) suggests that only E. oweni and E. arctatus are the only valid species of Emydops. With the appearance of E. minor marking the beginning of the stratigraphic range of Emydops in the Late Permian-aged Tropidostoma Assemblage Zone from the Karoo Basin of South Africa, it is argued that a specimen found in the vicinity of the Middle Permian to Late Permian Tapinocephalus