Nanictidopidae

Nanictidopidae
Temporal range: Late Permian
Restoration of the nanictidopid Purlovia maxima
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Clade: Therapsida
Clade: Therocephalia
Clade: Eutherocephalia
Family: Nanictidopidae
Watson and Romer, 1956
Genera

Nanictidopidae is an extinct family of therocephalian therapsids from the Late Permian. Two genera are currently included in the family, Nanictidops from South Africa and Purlovia from Russia. Nanictidopids have short skulls and were probably herbivorous.

Although Ivakhnenko 2011 considered Nanictidops and Purlovia closely related and classified them as the only two members of Nanictidopidae as they shared a wide temporal region, Liu and Abdala 2020 found little relation between the two genera and instead classifies Nanictidops as the basalmost member of Baurioidea, while Purlovia forms an exclusively Laurasian clade with the Chinese Caodeyao instead.[1]

  1. ^ Liu, Jun; Abdala, Fernando (2020-05-28). "The tetrapod fauna of the upper Permian Naobaogou Formation of China: 5. Caodeyao liuyufengi gen. et sp. nov., a new peculiar therocephalian". PeerJ. 8: e9160. doi:10.7717/peerj.9160. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 7261480. PMID 32523808.