Kombuisia
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Kombuisia Temporal range: Early to Middle Triassic |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Synapsida |
| Order: | Therapsida |
| Infraorder: | †Dicynodontia |
| Family: | †Kingoriidae |
| Genus: |
†Kombuisia Hotton, 1974 |
| Species | |
Kombuisia is a genus of dicynodont from Early to Middle Triassic (Induan to Anisian) of South Africa and Antarctica. Two species were described for the genus: Kombuisia frerensis (type) and Kombuisia antarctica.
Dicynodonts were a diverse clade that inhabited the earth from the Middle Permian to the Late Triassic. Kombuisia is one of few species to survive the mass extinction event in the late Permian.Kombuisia are non-mammalian synapsid herbivores. Specimens of this genus were discovered in the 1960s and 1970s and years later were determined to be two different species of the genus.
The two species were found in diverse areas, K. frerensis in South Africa and K. antarctica in Antarctica. This indicated that this genus existed in a wider biographical region in the southern hemisphere of Pangaea and believed by some to indicate the migration to Antarctica to avoid the rise in global temperatures that lead to the mass extinction. Migration to avoid global warming has been highly controversial because many of the fossils that are found in this region are juvenile and of small body size.
Originally the specimens that were collected in Antarctica were considered to be part of the Kingoria (now known as Dicynodontoides) genus. The specimens were originally catalogued in the American Museum of Natural History as Kingoria, however, with no formal reasoning for this categorization, this has since been revised with more up-to-date knowledge of features and speciation.
Kingoria was defined early on as a close relative to Kombuisia and Hotton describes the two groups as sister Taxa. Kingoria and K. frerensis were relatively close geographically during there time of existence. Kingoria fossils are found in the mid to southern region of Africa. In a re-evaluation of the cranial anatomy of K. frerensis using the rule of parsimony the most recent conclusion is that Kingoria and Kombuisia are sister taxa of the Kingoriidae clade.
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