Laccocephalus, Watson, 1919

‘ LACCOCEPHALUS INSPERATUS’ WATSON, 1919

Holotype: BMNH R532 , a partially preserved skull in two pieces. The larger one corresponds to the dorsal aspect of the palate (mainly the left side) where most of the bones are broken and have lost their dorsal-most surface. The second piece is a basicranial region, which was detached from the larger fragment, apparently during preparation.

Type locality and horizon: As this specimen, with no locality information other than from ‘near Mr. Hope’s farm, Orange Free State’ ( Watson, 1919: 18), was presented to the Natural History Museum (formerly the British Museum of Natural History) by Dr. Orpen from Smithfield, Watson concluded that the exact locality should be close to that town but its stratigraphic provenance is unknown. Later, Watson (1962: 255) considered Laccocephalus to be of Early Triassic age without providing any justification for this assumption.

Remark s: The specimen is preserved in a way that the bones of the palate are broken longitudinally thus exposing their internal structure. Haughton (1925) reviewed the taxon and the characters used by Watson to ally it to Rhinesuchidae , and indicated that the specimen seems to be ‘closer to Capitosaurus than to Rhinesuchus ’ ( Haughton, 1925: 232). Romer (1947) allied Laccocephalus to Uranocentrodon and included it under his Uranocentrodontidae ( Romer, 1947: 315) . Schoch & Milner (2000) considered L. insperatus a junior synonym of U. senekalensis van Hoepen. In contrast, Damiani & Rubidge (2003) regarded L. insperatus as nomina dubia and the specimen as Stereospondyli indet.

Statu s: There are no characters in the holotype that justify its inclusion in Rhinesuchidae , as originally proposed by Watson (1919). The specimen certainly needs further preparation but in its present state is here considered as a Stereospondyli indet. and L. inspera- t us as nomen dubium, in agreement with Damiani & Rubidge (2003).