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Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Département Histoire de la Terre, USM 0203—UMR, 5143 du CNRS Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnements, C.P. 38, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France (e-mail: bbattail{at}mnhn.fr)
In Laos, dicynodonts have long been known only from one specimen, now lost, a partial skull discovered by Counillon in the purple beds of the area of Luang Prabang, and initially described by Repelin as Dicynodon incisivum. Subsequent researchers attributed the specimen either to the Late Permian genus Dicynodon or to the Early Triassic genus Lystrosaurus. Recent Franco-Laotian expeditions have gathered, from the same purple beds, a collection of tetrapods composed mainly of dicynodonts. They can all be ascribed to Dicynodon, and the available evidence suggests that the purple beds are Late Permian in age. The genus Lystrosaurus remains unknown in Laos.