Tritylodont
| Tritylodonts Temporal range: Upper Triassic – mid Cretaceous |
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| Oligokyphus | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Synapsida |
| Order: | Therapsida |
| Suborder: | Cynodontia |
| Infraorder: | Eucynodontia |
| Superfamily: | Tritylodontoidea |
| (unranked): | Cynognathia |
| Family: | Tritylodontidae Cope, 1884 |
Tritylodonts [1] were small to medium-sized mammal-like cynodonts.
They were the last family of the non-mammalian synapsids. One of the last cynodont lines to appear, the family Tritylodontidae descended from a Cynognathus-like cynodont.
The Tritylodonts were herbivorous, chewing through vegetation, such as stems, leaves, and roots.
They were the longest surviving of all the non-mammalian therapsids. They appeared in the latest Triassic period, and persisted through the Jurassic until the Middle Cretaceous. This shows that the Tritylodonts were a successful group of therapsids, even though they lived right beneath the ruling dinosaurs' feet.
Chronoperates from the Palaeocene, after the Cretaceous and the K/T extinction event, may be a Tritylodont. If so, then the Tritylodonts were elusive and rare during the Upper Cretaceous, because no Tritylodonts were found by that time. However, the Chronoperates's anatomy also closely resembles to that of symmetrodonts – a mammalian lineage.
It is very clear that the Tritylodonts were warm-blooded. The Tritylodont fossils were found in the Americas, South Africa, and Eurasia. They may have managed to live worldwide, including Antarctica.
