Howesia
Extinct genus of reptile
Howesia is an extinct genus of basal rhynchosaur from early Middle Triassic (early Anisian stage) deposits of Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is known from the holotype. SAM-PK-5884 (a partial skeleton with palate and partial lower jaws), two paratypes (SAM-PK-5885 and SAM-PK-5886). The known fossils were found in the Burgersdorp Formation of the middle deposits of the Beaufort Group (Karoo Basin) and referred to Subzone B of the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone. The genus contains a single species, Howesia browni, named by Robert Broom in 1905, after Alfred Brown. The contemporary Eohyosaurus wolvaardti (holotype SAM-PK-K10159) has been suggested to be a junior synonym of H. browni based on shared anatomical traits not recognized when the former was named in 2015.
01Classification
The placement of Howesia as a basal member of the Rhynchosauria is shown in the cladogram below, following the phylogenetic results of Spiekman et al. (2026).
| †Rhynchosauria |
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Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Howesia”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Howesia browni (SAM-PK-K10180, left lateral).jpg by S. N. F. Spiekman, C. Browning, M. Tshibalanganda, D. Mukherjee, R. M. H. Smith, A. Du Plessis & F. Wolvaardt, CC BY 4.0
- Howesia browni.png by SeismicShrimp, CC BY 4.0
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