Therapsida is a group of
synapsids that includes
mammals and their ancestors. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including having their four limbs extend vertically beneath the body, as opposed to the sprawling posture of other
reptiles. The earliest fossil attributed to Therapsida is
Tetraceratops insignis from the
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 and were replaced, in turn, by the
archosauromorphs in the
Triassic, although one group of therapsids, the
kannemeyeriiforms, 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
tritylodontid cynodonts, became extinct in the
Early Cretaceous, approximately 100 million years ago.