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Description
Lycaenops was a South African Gorgonopsid that lived during the Middle Permian. It was a terrier-sized, doglike animal that walked on long, lanky and erect semi-digitrade legs, and had a long muzzle that probably bore whiskers. As a matter fact, the word "Lycaenops" literally means "wolf-face". Despite these remarkably doglike features, Lycaenops was not related to modern canids, nor was it a true mammal. Dogs wouldn't be in the picture until several hundred million years later. Caniforms and Gorgonopsids are actually a case of convergent evolution, a phenomenon in which two separate, remotely related or even completely unrelated animals evolve similar adaptations as a result of similar consequences. Lycaenops also possessed long saber teeth, a trait that would later be convergently evolved by certain Cenozoic marsupials and machairodont big cats.
Lycaenops was not as large or as fearsome as its bear-sized Russian relative Inostrancevia, so it didn't target any large dinocephalids. It's primary prey were small lizard-like reptiles and dicynodonts.

Description
Lycaenops was a South African Gorgonopsid that lived during the Middle Permian. It was a terrier-sized, doglike animal that walked on long, lanky and erect semi-digitrade legs, and had a long muzzle that probably bore whiskers. As a matter fact, the word "Lycaenops" literally means "wolf-face". Despite these remarkably doglike features, Lycaenops was not related to modern canids, nor was it a true mammal. Dogs wouldn't be in the picture until several hundred million years later. Caniforms and Gorgonopsids are actually a case of convergent evolution, a phenomenon in which two separate, remotely related or even completely unrelated animals evolve similar adaptations as a result of similar consequences. Lycaenops also possessed long saber teeth, a trait that would later be convergently evolved by certain Cenozoic marsupials and machairodont big cats.
Lycaenops was not as large or as fearsome as its bear-sized Russian relative Inostrancevia, so it didn't target any large dinocephalids. It's primary prey were small lizard-like reptiles and dicynodonts.