Edaphosaurus (/ˌɛdəfoʊˈsɔːrəs/, meaning "pavement lizard" for dense clusters of teeth) is a genus of extinct edaphosaurid synapsid that lived around 300 to 280 million years ago, during the late Carboniferous to early Permian periods. The American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first described Edaphosaurus in 1882, naming it for the "dental pavement" on both the upper and lower jaws, from the Greek edaphos/εδαφος ("ground"; also "pavement") and σαυρος/sauros ("lizard").