Anapsida Group of reptiles characterized by a skull that lacks apertures in the temple regions behind the eyes. This was the condition in the earliest reptiles, the Cotylosauria or ‘stem reptiles’. Four groups flourished in the late Palaeozoic: the Captorhinomorpha; the Mesosauria; the Pareiasauridae; and the Procolophonia, which survived into the Triassic. The only living representatives are the turtles (Chelonia).

Anapsida (class Reptilia) A subclass of reptiles characterized by a skull that lacks apertures in the temple regions behind the eyes. The only living representatives are the turtles (Chelonia) but three other groups flourished in the late Palaeozoic, two of them surviving into the Triassic.