Synapsids: Before dinosaurs ruled the earth

[sauroid]

if the non-mammalian synapsids werent reptiles, why are they called mammal-like reptiles?

https://allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/synapsids-evolution/

[Dinoguy2]

if the non-mammalian synapsids werent reptiles, why are they called mammal-like reptiles?

https://allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/synapsids-evolution/

Most people would no longer consider it correct to call them mammal-like reptiles. That term comes from the days when Reptilia was defined as a paraphyletic group (=all amniotes that were not mammals or birds). A few people still use that definition, but most paleontologists do not.

[CityRaptor]

There is a nice quote regarding that in the book "Synapsida" by McLoughlin ( 1980), that " a large portion of of these extinct "reptiles," if viewed in the flesh, would probably nver have been included in that oft-disparaged class." The Reptiles class, as defined by Linne, is pretty much a wastebucket.

[HD-man]

if the non-mammalian synapsids werent reptiles, why are they called mammal-like reptiles?

https://allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/synapsids-evolution/

To quote Holtz (See "II. Life on Land Before the Dinosaurs": https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G104/lectures/104land.html ), "These early synapsids would have had the sprawling stance found in primitive tetrapods in general. They almost certainly would have been "cold-blooded" (the ancestral state for vertebrates). So traditionally these animals have been considered "reptiles". However, they lack the shared derived features of reptiles (see below), and are instead simply primitive synapsids."