The earliest traditionally identified diapsids, the araeoscelidians, appeared about three hundred million years ago during the late Carboniferous period.

[4] The name Diapsida means "two arches", and diapsids are traditionally classified based on their two ancestral skull openings (temporal fenestrae) posteriorly above and below the eye.

Today, the synapsids are often not considered true reptiles, while Euryapsida were found to be an unnatural assemblage of diapsids that had lost one of their skull openings.

He defined it as the branch-based clade containing all animals more closely related to "Younginiformes" (later, more specifically, emended to Youngina capensis) than to Petrolacosaurus (representing Araeoscelidia).

[18] A 2020 study by David P. Ford and Roger B. J. Benson also recovered Parareptilia as deeply nested within Diapsida as the sister group to Neodiapsida.

They united this relationship between Parareptilia and Neodiapsida in the new clade Neoreptilia, defining it as the last common ancestor and all descendants of Procolophon trigoniceps and Youngina capensis.

[17] The position of the highly derived Mesozoic marine reptile groups Thalattosauria, Ichthyosauromorpha and Sauropterygia within Neodiapsida is uncertain, and they may lie within Sauria.