A new cryptodont dicynodont (Therapsida, Anomodontia) from the Lopingian Usili Formation, Ruhuhu Basin, Tanzania
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cryptodontia is a diverse and widespread group of Permian dicynodonts, although its exact membership has been a subject of uncertainty in recent phylogenetic analyses. Cryptodont fossils were first reported from the Lopingian Usili Formation (Ruhuhu Basin, Tanzania) in 1932, with the current composition of the Usili cryptodont assemblage emerging from taxonomic revisions in the mid-2000s. Here we describe a new cryptodont, Mdomowabata trilobops, gen. et sp. nov., from the Usili Formation. Diagnostic characters of M. trilobops include: transversely expanded caniniform process of the maxilla that has a bluntly rounded ventral tip; paired nasal bosses; hatchet-shaped exposure of the postfrontal on the dorsal surface of the skull; parietals that are widely exposed dorsally; intertemporal portion of the postorbital that is oriented vertically with a concave lateral surface; triangular exposure of the postparietal on the skull roof; low, close-set anterior median palatal ridges; large palatine pad with a rugose posterior section and a smoother anterior section that is flush with the premaxillary secondary palate; transversely broad and anteroposteriorly short symphyseal region of the mandible; and prominent, round muscle scar anterior to the external mandibular fenestra. The plow-shaped snout and evidence of increased facial sensitivity suggest that Mdomowabata used its snout to interact with the substrate. A phylogenetic analysis recovers M. trilobops within a monophyletic Cryptodontia, on the stem leading to a clade comprising Oudenodontidae and Rhachiocephalidae. However, persistent problems in recovering stable relationships suggest that a critical reassessment of the character data underlying current dicynodont phylogenies is needed.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".