Arctops

Arctops is an extinct genus of gorgonopsian therapsids known from the Late Permian of South and Eastern Africa. It measured up to 2 metres in length and its skull was 30 centimetres (12 in) long. The type species is Arctops willistoni, named from a poorly prepared and incomplete skull. A second species was named A. watsoni based on a complete skull in 1953, followed by a third in 1970, A. kitchingi, from a smaller, juvenile skull. Both were formally synonymized with A. willistoni by Christian Kammerer in 2017. An additional species, A. umulunshi, was described in 2025 from the Madumabisa Mudstone Formation of Zambia, named after the indigenous Icibemba word for "hunter".

Arctops

Nobu Tamura email:nobu.tamura@yahoo.com www.palaeocritti.com · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
GorgonopsinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Gorgonopsia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 259.857 Mya and 251.902 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Permian — about 6 of 6 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 6 occurrences260–260 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences260–259 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences259–259 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences259–258 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences258–258 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences258–257 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences257–257 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences257–256 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences256–256 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences256–256 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences256–256 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences256–255 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences255–255 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences255–255 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences255–254 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences254–254 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences254–254 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences254–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–253 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences260.4 Mya251.4 Mya

6 occurrences of Arctops on record, most of them in the Permian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

  • Middleton/Balfour Formation · Beaufort GroupEastern Cape · ZA · 259.857–254.14 Mya1
  • Madumabisa Mudstone FormationMuchinga · ZM · 259.857–254.14 Mya1
Middleton/Balfour — 32.25°S, 24.53°EMadumabisa Mudstone — 12.18°S, 32.11°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Arctops has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Arctops and its relatives

Permian

Where Arctops and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

1 taxon

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Arctops, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

4 references

Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Arctops

Credit
Nobu Tamura email:nobu.tamura@yahoo.com www.palaeocritti.com
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photography scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Arctops sp. · bp:1:1533

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itGorgonopsinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Watson 1914