Cisuralian first appearances

Cycads —constituting the division Cycadophyta—are seed plants with a stout, woody cylindrical trunk with a crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and usually pinnate (feather-shaped) leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants of a species are either male or female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow slowly and have long lifespans. They superficially resemble palms or ferns, but are not closely related to either group. Cycads are gymnosperms. Cycads have specialized pollinators, usually a specific beetle,

thumb|Corydalus cornutus - MHNT

Therapsida is a clade comprising a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals and their ancestors and close relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more underneath the body, resulting in a more "standing" quadrupedal posture, as opposed to the lower sprawling posture of many reptiles and amphibians.

Ensifera is a suborder of insects that includes the various types of crickets and their allies, including true crickets, camel crickets, bush crickets or katydids, grigs, wētā, and Cooloola monsters. This and the suborder Caelifera (grasshoppers and their allies) make up the order Orthoptera. Ensifera is believed to be a more ancient group than Caelifera, with its origins in the Carboniferous period, the split having occurred at the end of the Permian period. Unlike the Caelifera, the Ensifera contain numerous members that are partially carnivorous, feeding on other insects, as well as plants.

The Auchenorrhyncha suborder of the Hemiptera contains most of the familiar members of what was called the "Homoptera" – groups such as cicadas, leafhoppers, treehoppers, planthoppers, and spittlebugs. The aphids and scale insects are the other well-known "Homoptera", and they are in the suborder Sternorrhyncha.

Helicoprion is an extinct genus of large shark-like cartilaginous fish that lived from the Early to the Middle Permian, about 290-270 million years ago. Helicoprion is a member of the Eugeneodontiformes, an extinct order of cartilaginous fish within the clade Holocephali, a group today represented only by chimaeras. It is also the type genus of the Helicoprionidae, a family of eugeneodonts characterised by distinctive tooth structures called tooth whorls. Helicoprion was first named in 1899 by Alexander Karpinsky on the basis of fossils discovered in Russia and Australia, the generic name mean

Glossopteris (etymology: from Ancient Greek γλῶσσα, glôssa 'tongue' + πτερίς, pterís 'fern') is the largest and best-known genus of the extinct Permian order of seed plants known as Glossopteridales (also known as Arberiales, Ottokariales, or Dictyopteridiales). The name Glossopteris refers only to leaves, within the framework of form genera used in paleobotany, used for leaves of plants belonging to the glossopterid family Dictyopteridiaceae.

Cidaroida, also known as pencil urchins, is an order of primitive sea urchins, the only living order of the subclass Perischoechinoidea. All other orders of this subclass, which were even more primitive than the living forms, became extinct during the Mesozoic.

Archegosauridae is a family of relatively large and long snouted temnospondyls that lived in the Permian period. They were fully aquatic animals, and were metabolically and physiologically more similar to fish than modern amphibians. The family has been divided into two subfamilies, the longer-snouted Platyoposaurinae and the shorter-snouted Melosaurinae.

Cidaridae is a family of sea urchins in the order Cidaroida.

Glossopteridales is an extinct order of seed plants, known from the Permian of Gondwana. They arose at the beginning of the Permian, and the majority or all members of the group became extinct during the Permian–Triassic extinction event, 251.9 mya. Possible Triassic records of the group have been recorded. The best known genus is Glossopteris, a leaf form genus. Other examples are Gangamopteris, Glossotheca, and Vertebraria.

Stereospondylomorpha is a clade of temnospondyls. It includes the superfamily Archegosauroidea and the more diverse group Stereospondyli. Stereospondylomorpha was first proposed by Yates and Warren (2000), who found Archegosauroidea and Stereospondyli to be sister taxa in their phylogenetic analysis. A similar clade is Archegosauriformes, named by Schoch and Milner (2000), which includes Stereospondyli and some Permian temnospondyls that are similar in appearance to stereospondyls, including the archegosauroids. However, according to Schoch and Milner's phylogeny, Archegosauroidea is a paraphy

Ankyramorpha ("anchor forms") is a proposed clade of early stem reptiles which lived between the early Cisuralian epoch (middle Sakmarian stage) and the latest Triassic period (latest Rhaetian stage) of Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.

Ostodolepidae, also spelled Ostodolepididae, is an extinct family of Early Permian tetrapods. Initially they were considered microsaurs, but later were assigned to the group Recumbirostra. Ostodolepids were relatively large, reaching lengths of up to , terrestrial, and presumably fossorial. Ostodolepid remains have been found from Early Permian beds in Texas, Oklahoma, and Germany.

Brachystelechidae is an extinct family of Early Permian microsaurs. The family was first named by Robert L. Carroll and Pamela Gaskill in 1978, with the only member being Brachystelechus fritschi. Brachystelechus fritschi has since been reassigned to the genus Batropetes. Genera assigned to the family include: Batropetes, from Germany; Carrolla, from Texas; Quasicaecilia, also from Texas; Diabloroter, from the Mazon Creek lagerstätte of Illinois; and Bromerpeton from the Tambach Formation of Germany.

Gigantopterids (Gigantopteridales) is an extinct, possibly polyphyletic group of seed plants known from the Permian period. Gigantopterids were among the most advanced land plants of the Paleozoic Era and disappeared around the Permian–Triassic extinction event around 252 million years ago. Though some lineages of these plants managed to persist initially, they either disappeared entirely or adapted radically, evolving into undetermined descendants, as surviving life prospered again in much-altered ecosystems. One hypothesis proposes that at least some "gigantopterids" became the ancestors of