Cradognathus

Cradognathus (combining Cradock and gnathus, deriving from Ancient Greek to mean "jaw") is a genus of therocephalian (an extinct type of therapsid, the group to which modern mammals belong to) that lived at the end of the Late Permian (Lopingian) of what is now South Africa. The genus was originally named Hewittia by Adrian Smuts Brink in 1959, but this name is in fact preoccupied by a genus of crab spider named earlier in 1928. "Hewittia" albanensis would not receive its own name until 2025, when a second specimen validating the genus was thoroughly described and given the new name Cradognathus in 2025. The name references Cradock, the town in South Africa closest to where it was discovered. Cradognathus is a member of the therocephalian family Akidnognathidae, and although it is relatively gracile and narrow-snouted it is most closely related to the short-snouted large predator Moschorhinus and the potentially venomous Euchambersia.