Kombuisia frerensis, HOTTON, 1974

Fröbisch, Jörg, 2007, The cranial anatomy of Kombuisia frerensis Hotton (Synapsida, Dicynodontia) and a new phylogeny of anomodont therapsids, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 150 (1), pp. 117-144 : 118-119

KOMBUISIA FRERENSIS HOTTON, 1974

Holotype: BP/1/430, an almost complete small skull with lower jaws. The specimen was originally catalogued as USNM 22936 in the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) in Washington, DC, but was transferred to the Bernard Price Institute of Palaeontological Research in Johannesburg after its designation as holotype of Kombuisia frerensis .

Type locality: BP/1/430 was collected about 1.6 km south of the farm Lady Frere, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The deposits exposed at the locality belong to the Burgersdorp Formation (Beaufort Group) of the Karoo Basin. This formation is late Early to Middle Triassic in age and corresponds to the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone (AZ) ( Hancox & Rubidge, 2001). More specifically, BP/1/430 was found in subzone B (early Anisian) of the Cynognathus AZ.

Referred specimens: NM QR1835, a snout and dentaries.

Distribution: The two only known specimens (BP/1/ 430 and NM QR1835) that have been referred to Kombuisia frerensis are from the Burgersdorp Formation, which outcrops only in the eastern part of the South African Karoo Basin.

Stratigraphic range: BP/1/430 and NM QR1835 were both collected in the middle part of the Burgersdorp

Formation, which corresponds to the early Anisian subzone B of the Cynognathus AZ.

Revised diagnosis: Edentulous kingoriid dicynodont autapomorphic in its possession of the following characters: absence of a pineal foramen, an inverted triangular shape of the interparietal bone, lack of fusion of articular and prearticular bones, and presence of an elongate, slender parietal posterolateral process that extends onto the occipital edge of the skull roof.