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Cynodontia
Sign in to saveAlso known as cynodont
Cynodontia () is a clade of eutheriodont therapsids that first appeared in the Late Permian (approximately 260 mya), and extensively diversified after the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Mammals are cynodonts, as are their extinct ancestors and close relatives (Mammaliaformes), having evolved from advanced probainognathian cynodonts during the Late Triassic.
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 11
- With media
- 3
- Family
- Cynodontia
- Collections
- NHMUK, NMMNHS
- Recorded in
- South Africa, Zambia, United States
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
10 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Description
- Evolutionary history
- Taxonomy
- Phylogeny
- Distribution
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Cynodontia () is a clade of eutheriodont therapsids that first appeared in the Late Permian (approximately 260 mya), and extensively diversified after the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Mammals are cynodonts, as are their extinct ancestors and close relatives (Mammaliaformes), having evolved from advanced probainognathian cynodonts during the Late Triassic.
Non-mammalian cynodonts occupied a variety of ecological niches, both as carnivores and as herbivores. Following the emergence of mammals, most other cynodont lines went extinct, with the last known non-mammaliaform cynodont group, the Tritylodontidae, having its youngest records in the Early Cretaceous.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Cynodontia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.