Cacops woehri

Cacops, a genus of dissorophid temnospondyls, is one of the most distinctive Paleozoic amphibians that diversified in the equatorial region of Pangea during the Kungurian stage of the early Permian. Dissorophids were a group of fully terrestrial, often heavily armored faunivores. This, along with their relatively large size and geographical range suggest that they were able to coexist with amniotes as predators during the early Permian. Dissorophidae has four distinct clades differentiated largely on the morphology of the osteoderms, the Eucacopinae, the Dissorophinae, the Aspidosaurinae, and the Platyhystricinae. Cacops is one of the few olsoniforms whose ontogeny is beginning to surface. 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.

Cacops had many bony plates mainly concentrated along its back. These plates may have given it some protection from other terrestrial predators of the time. The large otic notch at the back of the skull suggests that Cacops had good hearing.