Ophiacodontidae

Ophiacodontidae
Temporal range: Late Carboniferous to Early Permian 308–280 Ma
Mounted skeleton of Ophiacodon retroversus in the American Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Clade: Metopophora
Family: Ophiacodontidae
Nopcsa, 1923
Subgroups[1]

Ophiacodontidae is an extinct family of early synapsids from the Carboniferous and Permian. Archaeothyris, and Clepsydrops were among the earliest ophiacodontids, appearing in the Late Carboniferous. Ophiacodontids are among the most basal synapsids, an offshoot of the lineage which includes therapsids and their descendants, the mammals. The group became extinct by the Kungurian or the Roadian,[2] replaced by anomodonts, theriodonts, and the diapsid reptiles.

  1. ^ Mann, A.; Paterson, R. S. (2020). "Cranial osteology and systematics of the enigmatic early 'sail-backed' synapsid Echinerpeton intermedium Reisz, 1972, and a review of the earliest 'pelycosaurs'". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 18 (6): 529–539. doi:10.1080/14772019.2019.1648323. S2CID 202847907.
  2. ^ Didier, Gilles; Laurin, Michel (9 December 2021). "Distributions of extinction times from fossil ages and tree topologies: the example of mid-Permian synapsid extinctions". PeerJ. 9: e12577. doi:10.7717/peerj.12577. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 8667717. PMID 34966586.