Synapsida

Synapsida is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant reptiles and, therefore, birds). Unlike other amniotes, synapsids have a single temporal fenestra, an opening low in the skull roof behind each eye socket, leaving a bony arch beneath each; this accounts for the name "synapsid". The distinctive temporal fenestra developed about 318 million years ago during the Late Carboniferous period, when synapsids and sauropsids diverged, but was subsequently merged with the orbit in early mammals.

The basal amniotes (reptiliomorphs) from which synapsids evolved were historically simply called "reptiles". Therefore, stem group synapsids were then described as mammal-like reptiles in classical systematics, and non-therapsid synapsids were also referred to as pelycosaurs or pelycosaur-grade synapsids. These paraphyletic terms have fallen out of favor and are only used informally (if at all) in modern literature, as it is now known that all extant reptiles are more closely related to each other and birds than to synapsids, so the word "reptile" has been re-defined to mean only members of Sauropsida or even just an under-clade thereof. In a cladistic sense, synapsids are in fact a monophyletic sister taxon of sauropsids, rather than a part of the sauropsid lineage. Therefore, calling synapsids "mammal-like reptiles" is incorrect under the new definition of "reptile", so they are now referred to as stem mammals, proto-mammals, paramammals or pan-mammals. Most lineages of pelycosaur-grade synapsids were replaced by the more advanced therapsids, which evolved from sphenacodontoid pelycosaurs, at the end of the Early Permian during the so-called Olson's Extinction.