Stegops

{{Short description|Extinct genus of amphibians}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| taxon = Stegops

|image = PSM V72 D567 Stegops divaricata cope from the carboniferous ohio.png

|image_caption = Stegops divaricata Cope from the Carboniferous of Ohio

| fossil_range = Late Carboniferous

| authority = Cope, 1885

| type_species = {{extinct}}Stegops divaricata

| type_species_authority = Cope, 1885

| synonyms =

• Stegops newberryi (Cope, 1875 [originally Sauropleura newberryi])

}}

Stegops is an extinct genus of euskelian temnospondyl from the Late Carboniferous of the eastern United States. Fossils are known from the Pennsylvanian coal deposits of Linton, Ohio. It was once classified in the eryopoid family Zatrachydidae because it and other zatrachydids have spikes extending from the margins of its skull, but it is now classified as a dissorophoid that independently evolved spikes.{{cite journal |last=Milner |first=A. |author2=Schoch, R. |year=2006 |title=Stegops, a problematic spiky-headed temnospondyl |journal=Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology |volume=26 |issue=3, Suppl. |pages=101A|doi=10.1080/02724634.2006.10010069}} Stegops was first named by American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in 1885, with his description of the type species Stegops divaricata. Cope had also named a species of Sauropleura from Linton in 1875, which he called Sauropleura newberryi. This species was later synonymized with Stegops divaricata when the type specimen of S. newberryi was prepared and found to be a large specimen of Stegops.{{cite journal |last=Hook |first=R.W. |author2=Baird, D. |year=1984 |title=Ichthycanthus platypus Cope, 1877, reidentified as the dissorophoid amphibian Amphibamus lyelli |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=58 |issue=3 |pages=697–702}}