Cacops

Cacops ("ugly look" for its strange appearance), is a genus of dissorophid temnospondyls from the Kungurian stage of the early Permian of the United States. Cacops is one of the few olsoniforms (dissorophids and the larger trematopids) whose ontogeny is known. Cacops fossils were almost exclusively known from the Cacops Bone Bed of the Lower Permian Arroyo Formation of Texas for much of the 20th century. New material collected from the Dolese Brothers Quarry, near Richards Spur, Oklahoma in the past few decades has been recovered, painting a clearer picture of what the animal looked and acted like.

==History of discovery== thumb|left|upright|C. woehri holotype Cacops aspidephorus is the most famous dissorophid, in part due to a majority of its skeleton having been known for over a century. Over 50 specimens have been found in the Cacops Bone Bed in Baylor County, Texas, which is now flooded by the dammed Lake Kemp. However, many of the specimens are covered in calcite, which penetrates the bone tissue, resulting in poor preservation. Trematopsis seltini from the Vale Formation of Texas was originally described as a trematopid by Olson (1956) but was later synonymized with Cacops aspidephorus by Milner (1985).