Nyctiphruretidae

{{Short description|Extinct family of reptiles}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| name = Nyctiphruretids

| display_parents = 3

| taxon = Nyctiphruretidae

| fossil_range = Early-Middle Permian, {{fossil_range|289|265}}

| parent_authority = Lee, 1997

| authority = Efremov, 1938

| subdivision_ranks = Genera

| subdivision = *{{extinct}}Abyssomedon

• {{extinct}}Nyctiphruretus

}}

Nyctiphruretidae is an extinct family of hallucicranian parareptiles known from the late Early to the late Middle Permian of European Russia and south-central United States.{{Cite journal|author=Mark J. MacDougall and Robert R. Reisz |year=2014 |title=The first record of a nyctiphruretid parareptile from the Early Permian of North America, with a discussion of parareptilian temporal fenestration |journal=Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society |volume=172 |issue=3 |pages=616–630 |doi=10.1111/zoj.12180 }}

Nyctiphruretidae was named by Efremov in 1938. The type genus is Nyctiphruretus known from several Middle Permian locations in European Russia. Michael S. Y. Lee in 1997 placed the family in the larger clade Nyctiphruretia. The order was defined to include both nyctiphruretids and nycteroleterids.{{cite journal |author=M. S. Y. Lee |year=1997 |title=Pareiasaur phylogeny and the origin of turtles |journal=Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society |volume=120 |pages=197–280 |doi=10.1111/j.1096-3642.1997.tb01279.x|doi-access= }} However, recent cladistic analyses suggest that nycteroleterids are more closely related to the Pareiasauria instead, thus making Nyctiphruretus the only genus of its order.{{cite journal |author=Laura K. Säilä |year=2010 |title=The phylogenetic position of Nyctiphruretus acudens, a parareptile from the Permian of Russia |journal=Journal of Iberian Geology |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=123–143 |doi=10.5209/rev_JIGE.2010.v36.n2.2 |ISSN=1698-6180 |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |author=Linda A. Tsuji, Johannes Müller and Robert R. Reisz |year=2012 |title=Anatomy of Emeroleter levis and the Phylogeny of the Nycteroleter Parareptiles |url=http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2012.626004?journalCode=vrpa |journal=Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=45–67 |doi=10.1080/02724634.2012.626004 }} In 2014, MacDougall & Reisz described and named a second genus of Nyctiphruretidae, Abyssomedon, from the middle Leonardian stage of the late Early Permian of Comanche County, Oklahoma, south-central United States. It contains a single species, A. williamsi, which represents the first nyctiphruretid known from North America, and the oldest species of the family.