Trituberculata

{{Automatic Taxobox

| fossil_range = {{Fossil range|200|85}} Upper Triassic - Upper Cretaceous

| taxon = Trituberculata

| subdivision_ranks = Orders

| subdivision =

?Symmetrodonta

Pantotheria

Aegialodontia

Eupantotheria}}

Trituberculata is an extinct group of animals existing in the fossil record from about 215 – 85 MYA.{{Citation |last=McKenna |first=Malcolm C. |title=Toward a Phylogenetic Classification of the Mammalia |date=1975 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2166-8_2 |work=Phylogeny of the Primates: A Multidisciplinary Approach |pages=21–46 |editor-last=Luckett |editor-first=W. Patrick |place=Boston, MA |publisher=Springer US |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-4684-2166-8_2 |isbn=978-1-4684-2166-8 |access-date=2022-06-21 |editor2-last=Szalay |editor2-first=Frederick S.}} It contains the ancestors of Placentalia and Marsupialia; all modern mammals except Monotremata are descended from trituberculates.{{Cite journal |last=Osborn |first=Henry Fairfield |last2=Wortman |first2=Jacob Lawson |last3=Peterson |first3=Olof August |date=1893 |title=Fossil mammals of the Upper Cretaceous beds. Bulletin of the AMNH ; v. 5, article 17. |url=https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/791 |language=en-US}} It is named for the three tubercles (cusps) of the molar teeth (not to be confused with Triconodonta).{{Cite journal |last=Matthew |first=William Diller |last2=Simpson |first2=George Gaylord |date=1943 |title=Relationships of the Orders of Mammals |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1374832 |journal=Journal of Mammalogy |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=304–311 |doi=10.2307/1374832 |issn=0022-2372}} The clade Trituberculata is not always regarded as a valid one, and it likely does not form a monophyletic group. Instead, some of them may be "true" basal mammals (although not always closest related to each other), while others (such as the symmetrodonts) may fall just outside the therian crown group.