Tritylodon

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Tritylodon
Fossil range: Triassic
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Synapsida
Order: Therapsida
Family: Tritylodontidae
Genus: Tritylodon

Tritylodon was a tritylodont, one of the most advanced group of cynodonts. Some people think that tritylodonts included the ancestors of mammals, but others consider the trithelodontids to be ancestral to mammals.

They lived in the Triassic period along with dinosaurs, and could be confused with a mammal at first sight.

Tritylodon was a small herbivorous cynodont. Most cynodonts were carnivorous, but it seems that Tritylodon and its close kin had evolved to eat plants because its carnivorous ancestors were outcompeted by carnivorous archosaurs and other reptiles, and the newly evolved mammals.