Diadectomorpha is a clade of large tetrapods that lived in Euramerica during the Carboniferous and Early Permian periods and in Asia during Late Permian (Wuchiapingian),[1] They have typically been classified as advanced reptiliomorphs (transitional between "amphibians" sensu lato and amniotes) positioned close to, but outside of the clade Amniota, though some recent research has recovered them as the sister group to the traditional Synapsida within Amniota, based on inner ear anatomy and cladistic analyses.
More recently they have been reclassified either as non-amniote reptiliomorphs lying just outside the clade Amniota, or as early-diverging synapsids (members of the amniote group containing mammals and their extinct relatives).
Current thinking favours the amniote egg being evolved in very small animals, like Westlothiana or Casineria, leaving the bulky Diadectomorphs just on the amphibian side of the divide.
Alfred Romer indicated that the anamniote/amniote divide might not have been very sharp, leaving the question of the actual mode of reproduction of these large animals unanswered.
Lee and Spencer (1997) argued diadectomorphs probably laid amniote eggs because their adaptations to feed on terrestrial plants rich on fiber mean they were adapted to a niche not seen in unambiguous 'amphibians', and would have required an early acquisition of terrestrial endosymbionts necessary for this diet that supposedly could not have happened if young diadectomorphs were aquatic larvae.