Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Synapsida [a] is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant reptiles and birds).
Reptiles, from Nouveau Larousse Illustré, 1897–1904, notice the inclusion of amphibians (below the crocodiles). In the 13th century, the category of reptile was recognized in Europe as consisting of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, lizards, assorted amphibians, and worms", as recorded by Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature. [7]
The most popular definition states that Sauropsida is the sibling taxon to Synapsida, the other clade of amniotes which includes mammals as its only modern representatives. Although early synapsids have historically been referred to as "mammal-like reptiles", all synapsids are more closely related to mammals than to any modern reptile.
Tetrapoda includes three living classes: amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Overall, the biodiversity of lissamphibians, [23] as well as of tetrapods generally, [24] has grown exponentially over time; the more than 30,000 species living today are descended from a single amphibian group in the Early to Middle Devonian.
Class Amphibia (amphibians, some ancestral to the amniotes)—now a paraphyletic group; Class Synapsida (mammals and their extinct relatives) Class Sauropsida (reptiles and birds) While this traditional taxonomy is orderly, most of the groups are paraphyletic, meaning that the structure does not accurately reflect the natural evolved grouping. [47]
Only a few modern mammal species are capable of producing venom; they are likely the last living examples of what was once a more common trait among the mammals. The definition of "venomous" becomes less distinct here, however, and whether some species are truly venomous is still debated. European mole (Talpa europaea)
Reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class Reptilia, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology.
Reptiliomorpha (meaning reptile-shaped; in PhyloCode known as Pan-Amniota [2] [3]) is a clade containing the amniotes and those tetrapods that share a more recent common ancestor with amniotes than with living amphibians (lissamphibians).