[6] Rhinesuchids are one of the earliest groups of stereospondyls to appear in the fossil record and are predominantly a late Permian clade, with only one species, Broomistega putterilli, from the Early Triassic of South Africa.

[10] This led Yates & Warren (2000) to propose that stereospondyls had sheltered in a high-latitude refugium that would have been somewhat shielded from the global effects of the extinction, and that they subsequently radiated from present-day Australia or Antarctica.

[1] By the end of the Early Triassic, virtually all major clades of stereospondyls had appeared in the fossil record, although some were more geographically localized (e.g., lapillopsids, rhytidosteids) than those with cosmopolitan distributions (e.g., capitosauroids, trematosauroids).

[25][26] While stereospondyls are often compared to modern crocodilians, the presence of multiple temnospondyls in some environments and the range of morphologies across Stereospondyli indicates that at least some clades occupied drastically different ecological niches, such as benthic ambush predators.

[28][29] Peltobatrachidae Lapillopsidae Rhinesuchidae Lydekkerinidae Mastodonsauroidea Benthosuchus Thoosuchidae Trematosauridae Latiscopidae Metoposauridae Plagiosauridae Laidleriidae Inobrachyopidae Rhytidosteidae Brachyopidae Chigutisauridae