Moschorhinus is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of therocephalia

Therocephalia

Therocephalians are an extinct suborder of carnivorous eutheriodont therapsids that lived from the middle and late Permian into the Triassic 265.0—245.0 Ma existing for approximately ....

n. It was a carnivorous quadruped and lived in the Permian

Permian

The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

 period. Described by South African paleontologist Robert Broom

Robert Broom

Professor Robert Broom was a Scottish South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow...

 in 1920, its name is derived from the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 words moschos "calf" and rhino- "nose".

Its short strong skull bore long straight canines and was up to lion-sized. It resembled the gorgonopsids, whose predatory role it appears to have replaced.

Remains of Moschorhinus kitchingi have been found in the earliest Triassic beds in the Karoo basin, hence surviving the Permian-Triassic extinction event, but disappear soon afterwards.