Palaeos		Anapsida
Vertebrates		Classification

Anapsida: Classification

REPTILIOMORPHA
|--SYNAPSIDA
`--+--EUREPTILIA
   |   
   ANAPSIDA
   |--+--Millerettidae
   |   `--Eunotosaurus
   |--Mesosauridae
   `--+--Lanthanosuchoidea
      `--+--Bolosauridae
         `--Procolophonia
            |--+--Nycteroleteridae
            |   `--Pareiasauridae
            `--Procolophonoidea  
               |--Owenettidae 
               |   `?--TESTUDINES
               `--Procolophonidae

The following rather hasty and hence somewhat incomplete page uses Linnaean taxonomy, but is rather dramatically modified from our usual refernce source of Carroll 1988. We have replaced the old Cotylosauria here with three orders: Eunotosauria, Mesosauria, and Procolophonomorpha. The predominance of monotypal taxa show that either early anapsids showed great morphological diversity, early paleobntologists loved to coin new high rank taxa or, more likely, both. For the cladistic equivalent, see the dendrogram page MAK120328

Subclass Anapsida Osborn, 1903 (= Anapsida Williston, 1917) [1] (cont.)
  Order Eunotosauria Watson, 1917 [2] (= Superfamily Millerosauroidea Romer, 1966)
     Family Millerettidae Romer, 1945 small, insectivorous, lizardlike forms, Mid to Late Perm of SAfr
     Family Eunotosauridae Haughton & Brink, 1954 monotypal family for Eunotosaurus, convergent with turtles, Mid Perm of S Afr
  Order Mesosauria Seeley, 1892 monotypal order for Mesosauridae only
     Family Mesosauridae Baur, 1889 monotypal family of small aquatic reptiles - Early Permian of SAfr & Sth Am
  Order Procolophonomorpha [3] Romer, 1964 an assemblage of primitive, mostly lizard- or amphibian-like Permo-Triassic reptiles, with a few aberrant large forms
   Suborder Lanthanosuchida Carroll, Kuhn & Tatarinov, 1972 (= Superfamily Lanthanosuchoidea)
     Family Acleistorhinidae Daly, 1969
     Family Lanthanosuchidae Efremov, 1946
   Suborder Bolosauroia Kuhn, 1959 monotypal for Bolosauridae only
     Family Bolosauridae Cope, 1878 faculatively bipedal, insectivorous, lizardlike forms, Early Perm of WEur, EEur, NAm, & EEas
   Suborder Procolophonia Seeley, 1888
    Superfamily "Nyctiphruretoidea"[4] Lee 1995 - ancestral procolophonians
     Family Nyctiphruretidae Efremov, 1938 - monotypal family for basal taxon Nyctiphruretus , Mid Perm of EEur
     Family Nycteroleteridae
      Subfamily Tokosaurinae - monotypal subfamily for basal taxon Macroleter (=Tokosaurus), Mid Perm of EEur
      Subfamily Nycteroleterinae - small, insectivorous, lizardlike forms, Mid Perm of EEur, NAm, & SAfr
      Subfamily Rhipaeosaurinae Chudinov, 1955 - monotypal subfamily for Rhipaeosaurus, Mid Perm of EEur
    Superfamily Pareiasauroidea Cope, 1869 (sensu Nopcsa, 1928) - monotypal superfamily for Pareiasaurs
     Family Pareiasauridae Lydekker 1889 = Pareiasauridae Cope, 1869 - medium to very large armoured herbivores, Mid to Late Perm of Afr, Eur, EEur, SthAm, EAs
      Subfamily Bradysaurinae Huene 1948 Includes only the very large, primitive, early genus Bradysaurus Mid Perm of Sth Afr
      Subfamily Pareiasaurinae Nopcsa 1923. paraphyletic assemblage of large to very large, moderately armoured typical Pareiasaurs, Mid to Late Perm of Afr, Eur, EEur, SthAm, EAs
      Subfamily Elgininae Cope, 1895 monotypal taxon for Elginia mirabilis, a smallish, spiny headed pareiasaur from the Late Perm of WEur
      Subfamily Pumiliopareiasaurinae [5] Jalil & Janvier 2005 small, advanced pareiasaurs, strongly advergent with turtles - Late Perm of SAfr & SAm
    Superfamily Procolophonoidea Romer, 1956
     Family Owenettidae Broom, 1939 small, insectivorous, lizard-like procolophonoids, Late Perm to Mid Trias of SAfr, Mad, & SAm
     Family Procolophonidae [6] Seeley, 1888
      Subfamily Theledectinae Cisneros 2006 small, primitive, insectivorous forms, Early Trias of EEAs and Aus
      Subfamily Procolophoninae Seeley, 1888 advanced, herbivorous procolophonids with stocky bodies, triangular skulls, and chisel-like teeth, Early to Mid Trias of SAfr, Ant, SAm, & EEAs
      Subfamily Leptopleuroninae Ivakhenko, 1982 (= Telerpetontidae Lydekker, 1888) advanced herbivorous, spiny-headed procolophonids, Early to Late Trias of WEur, EAs, NAm, & SAm,
      Subfamily [7] Sclerosaurinae Nopcsa, 1923 monotypal taxon for Sclerosaurus armatus, a large, wide-bodied procolophonid convergent with pareiasaurs, Early Trias of WEur

Notes

[1] as paraphyletic stem taxon sensu Carroll, not a monophyletic clade sensu Gauthier, Resiz, etc. If turtles (order Chelonii) turn out to be diapsids, then Anapsida would become polyphyletic, and this subclass could appropriately be renamed Parareptilia. For now we are going with the more traditional, anapasid origin, hypothesis. MAK120326

[2] we are following Cisneros et al 2008 and Tsuji et al 2012 in including the eunotosaurs with or under the millerettids. This synonymises the Eunotosauria and the Millerosauroidea. The Order Eunotosauria Watson, 1917 also has priority over Millerosauria Watson 1957 and Promillerosauria Kuhn, 1959. Although Eunotosauridae would be included under a monophyletic family Millerettidae (Cisneros et al 2008), we have retained it as a distinct Linnaean taxon because of Eunotosaurus' great morphological distinction. MAK120328

[3] here expanded to include various related taxa.

[4] from the pseudomonophyletic taxon Nyctiphruretia Lee 1995

[5] Linnaeanisation of unranked clade Pumiliopareiasauria of Jalil & Janvier 2005

[6] Subfamily Spondylolestinae Ivakhenko, 1979 is usually include din taxaonomic lists, but we have not retained it as it is a polyphyletic taxon of assorted primitive forms procolophonoidsas currently defined. Some are not procolophonids (Candelaria is an owenettid), some are poorly known or indeterminate, and some have been reassigned to other subfamilies. Spondylolestinae coukld still be a valid taxon if applied only to Spondylolestes and related forms MAK120328

[7] which would make the Leptopleuroninae paraphyletic, although this is not a problem for linnaean/evolutionary systematic classifications