Varanopidae Temporal range: Late Carboniferous - Middle Permian,
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Fossil skeleton of Varanops brevirostris in the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Synapsida |
Family: | †Varanopidae Romer and Price, 1940 |
Genera | |
See below |
Varanopidae is an extinct family of amniotes that resembled monitor lizards and may have filled a similar niche, hence the name. Typically, they are considered synapsids that evolved from an Archaeothyris-like synapsid in the Late Carboniferous. Although some studies from the late 2010s have recovered them being taxonomically closer to diapsid reptiles,[1][2][3] recent studies from the early 2020s support their traditional placement as synapsids on the basis of high degree of bone labyrinth ossification, maxillary canal morphology and phylogenetic analyses.[4][5][6] A varanopid from the latest Middle Permian Pristerognathus Assemblage Zone is the youngest known varanopid and the last member of the "pelycosaur" group of synapsids.[7]
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