Delphinognathus is an extinct genus of Tapinocephalidae

Tapinocephalidae

Tapinocephalidae is an advanced family of tapinocephalians. They were all herbivores. They were giants of their time, weighing from 500 to 1000 kg and possibly over 1 or 2 tonnes in weight. They are known from South Africa and Russia. The tapinocephalid skull is very thick, probably used for...

. Its fossils have been found in the Karoo Beds in Cape Colony

Cape Colony

The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. It was first named by Professor Harry G. Seeley

Harry Seeley

Harry Govier Seeley was a British paleontologist.-Career:Seeley was born in London, the son of Richard Hovill Seeley, goldsmith, and his second wife Mary Govier. He attended classes at the Royal School of Mines, Kensington before becoming an assistant to Adam Sedgwick at the Woodwardian Museum,...

 in 1892, and contains one species, D. conocephalus. Seeley described the animal on account of a skull specimen, which had been discovered by Cape Colony government geologist Thomas Bain

Thomas Bain

Thomas Bain was a Canadian parliamentarian.Bain was born in Scotland, the son of Walter Bain, and migrated to Canada with his family when he was three years old. They settled on a bush farm in Wentworth County near Hamilton, Ontario.He was elected to the County Council in the 1860s and became...

. Although the skull had apparently suffered from poor preservation, he declared it indicative of a new family of fossil reptile. Delphinognathus is the only Tapinocephalid in which the orbit of the skull lies wholly in the posterior half.

Suggested further reading

• Collected papers By William King Gregory. Published 1950. Original from the University of California.
• Palaeontologia Africana By Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research. Published 1953, The Institute.
• Text-book of paleontology By Karl Alfred von Zittel, Charles Rochester Eastman, Arthur Smith Woodward, Max Schlosser, Lucy Peck Bush, Marguerite L. Engler, Marguerite Louise Engler Schwarzman. Translated by Lucy Peck Bush, Marguerite L. Engler. Published 1925, Macmillan
  Macmillan Publishers
  Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
  
  
• Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa By Royal Society of South Africa. Published 1925, Royal Society of South Africa
  Royal Society of South Africa
  The Royal Society of South Africa is a learned society composed of eminent South African scientists and academics. The Society was granted its royal charter by King Edward VII in 1908, nearly a century after Capetonians first began to conceive of a national scholarly society...
  
  

External links

• Delphinognathus at the Paleobiology Database
  Paleobiology Database
  ' is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms.-History:The Paleobiology Database was founded in 2000. It has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council...
  
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• www.kheper.net