Epicynodontia is a clade of cynodont

therapsid Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more ...

s that includes most cynodonts, such as galesaurids, thrinaxodontids, and

Eucynodontia Eucynodontia ("true dog teeth") is a clade of cynodont therapsids including mammals and most non-mammalian cynodonts. The oldest eucynodonts are known from the Early Triassic and possibly Late Permian. Eucynodontia includes two major subgroups, ...

(including mammals). It was erected as a

stem-based taxon Phylogenetic nomenclature is a method of nomenclature for taxa in biology that uses phylogenetic definitions for taxon names as explained below. This contrasts with the traditional approach, in which taxon names are defined by a '' type'', which ...

by Hopson and Kitching (2001) and defined as the most inclusive clade containing

Mammalia Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...

and excluding ''

Procynosuchus ''Procynosuchus'' (Greek: "Before dog crocodile") is an extinct genus of cynodonts from the Late Permian. It is considered to be one of the earliest and most basal cynodonts. It was 60 cm (2 ft) long. Remains of ''Procynosuchus'' have ...

'', a Late Permian genus that is one of the most basal cynodonts. Below is a

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

from Ruta, Botha-Brink, Mitchell and Benton (2013) showing one hypothesis of cynodont relationships:

References

Cynodonts Lopingian first appearances Extant Permian first appearances Tetrapod unranked clades Taxa named by James Hopson Taxa named by James Kitching {{Therapsid-stub