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A = Anapsid, B = Synapsid, C = Diapsid. It was traditionally assumed that first reptiles were anapsids, having a solid skull with holes only for the nose, eyes, spinal cord, etc.; [10] the discoveries of synapsid-like openings in the skull roof of the skulls of several members of Parareptilia, including lanthanosuchoids, millerettids, bolosaurids, some nycteroleterids, some procolophonoids and ...
Quetzalcoatlus. Quetzalcoatlus (/ kɛtsəlkoʊˈætləs /) is a genus of azhdarchid pterosaur known from the Late Cretaceous Maastrichtian age of North America. The first specimen, recovered in 1971 from the Javelina Formation, consists of several wing fragments. It was made the holotype of Quetzalcoatlus northropi in 1975 by Douglas Lawson and ...
Timeline of pterosaur research. This timeline of pterosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of pterosaurs, the famed flying reptiles of the Mesozoic era. Although pterosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans evolved, humans have ...
Mesosaur. Mesosaurs ("middle lizards") were a group of small aquatic reptiles that lived during the early Permian period (Cisuralian), roughly 299 to 270 million years ago. Mesosaurs were the first known aquatic reptiles, having apparently returned to an aquatic lifestyle from more terrestrial ancestors. It is uncertain which and how many ...
Pterodactylus (from Ancient Greek: πτεροδάκτυλος, romanized: pterodáktylos ' winged finger ' [2]) is a genus of extinct pterosaurs.It is thought to contain only a single species, Pterodactylus antiquus, which was the first pterosaur to be named and identified as a flying reptile and one of the first prehistoric reptiles to ever be discovered.
J.N. Laurenti was the first to formally use the term Reptilia for an expanded selection of reptiles and amphibians basically similar to that of Linnaeus. [10] Today, the two groups are still commonly treated under the single heading herpetology. "Antediluvian monster", a Mosasaurus discovered in a Maastricht limestone quarry, 1770 (contemporary ...
Plesiosaurs were among the first fossil reptiles discovered. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists realised how distinctive their build was and they were named as a separate order in 1835. The first plesiosaurian genus, the eponymous Plesiosaurus, was named in 1821.
Although they were reptiles and descended from egg-laying, oviparous, ancestors, viviparity is not as unexpected as it first appears. Air-breathing marine creatures must either come ashore to lay eggs , like turtles and some sea snakes , or else give birth to live young in surface waters, like whales and dolphins.