Niaftasuchus is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of synapsid

Synapsid

Synapsids are a group of animals that includes mammals and everything more closely related to mammals than to other living amniotes. They are easily separated from other amniotes by having an opening low in the skull roof behind each eye, leaving a bony arch beneath each, accounting for their name...

. Only one species is recorded, Niaftasuchus zekkeli, from Nyafta, basin of the Mezen' River, Arkhangelsk Oblast

Arkhangelsk Oblast

Arkhangelsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It includes the Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, as well as the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea....

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. The family Niaftasuchidae was created by Ivankhenko in 1990, and initially attributed to the Tapinocephalia

Tapinocephalia

The tapinocephalians are one of the major groups of dinocephalian therapsids. Unlike anteosaurs and estemmenosuchids, tapinocephalians are mainly from Africa and only one species is found in the north - Ulemosaurus from Russia. The tapinocephalians are divided into three clades, Styracocephalidae,...

, essentially on the basis of the dentition; later it was regarded as Biarmosuchia

Biarmosuchia

Biarmosuchia, also known as Eotitanosuchia and Phthinosuchia, is an assemblage of primitive Permian therapsids that represent either a paraphyletic stem group or a very early off-shoot of the main therapsid tree....

, by share big orbits and fused vomers.