Therapsids

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Adapted to running
Running and walking evolved as a method of getting around when life emerged from water on to dry land. Animals that travel about on foot usually have a particular speed of gait which is their most energy efficient.

Fossil types

Learn more about the other animals and plants that also form these fossils.

Trace fossils
It's not only the actual bodily remains of dead animals and plants that can become fossils. Things created or left behind by animals can also fossilise, such as their footprints, burrows and dung.

About

Therapsida is a group of the most advanced synapsids, and include the ancestors of mammals. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including hair, lactation, and an erect posture. The earliest fossil attributed to Therapsida is believed to be Tetraceratops insignis (Lower Permian). Therapsids evolved from 'pelycosaurs' (specifically sphenacodonts) 275 million years ago. They replaced the pelycosaurs as the dominant large land animals in the Middle Permian. They remained the dominant fauna until replaced by archosaurs and rhynchosaurs in the Middle Triassic although some therapsids, the kannemeyeriiforms for example, remained diverse in the Late Triassic. The therapsids included the cynodonts, the group that gave rise to mammals in the Late Triassic around 225 million years ago. Of the non-mammalian therapsids, only cynodonts and dicynodonts survived the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The last of the non-mammalian therapsids, the cynodont tritylodontids, became extinct in the Early Cretaceous, approximately 100 million years ago.

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