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Archosauriformes (Greek for 'ruling lizards', and Latin for 'form') is a clade of diapsid reptiles encompassing archosaurs and some of their close relatives. It was defined by Jacques Gauthier (1994) as the clade stemming from the last common ancestor of Proterosuchidae and Archosauria. [3]
An equivalent term for the crocodilian side of the archosaur family tree is Pseudosuchia. This traditional definition of Crurotarsi assumed that phytosaurs were crown-group archosaurs and more closely related to crocodilians than to birds. However, a 2011 study argued that the phytosaur lineage evolved prior to the split between birds and ...
Traditionally, the order Thecodontia Owen, 1859 was divided into four suborders, the Proterosuchia (early primitive forms, another paraphyletic assemblage), Phytosauria (large crocodile-like semi-aquatic animals), the Aetosauria (armoured herbivores), and the Pseudosuchia, a wastebasket taxon intended to be paraphyletic to all later archosaurs (see e.g., Alfred Sherwood Romer's Vertebrate ...
If the crocodilian ancestors and other Triassic archosaurs were warm-blooded, this would help to resolve some evolutionary puzzles: The earliest crocodylomorphs, e.g., Terrestrisuchus, were slim, leggy terrestrial predators whose build suggests a fairly active lifestyle, which requires a fairly fast metabolism.
Modern paleontologists define Archosauria as a crown group that includes the most recent common ancestor of living birds and crocodilians, and all of its descendants. The base of Archosauria splits into two clades: Pseudosuchia , which includes crocodilians and their extinct relatives, and Avemetatarsalia , which includes birds and their ...
Below is the phylogeny from Crawford et al., showing interrelationships of Testudines at family level down to Durocryptodira. Archelosauria was grouped within Sauria (the clade formed by archosaurs and lepidosaurs), as the sister branch to Lepidosauria, the clade containing lizards, snakes and the tuatara .
Proterosuchus fergusi from the Early Triassic of South Africa. They were slender, medium-sized (about 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) long, largest specimens reached 3.5–4 m (11–13 ft) [2]), long-snouted and superficially crocodile-like animals, although they lacked the armoured scutes of true crocodiles, and their skeletal features are much more primitive.
Archosauromorpha (Greek for "ruling lizard forms") is a clade of diapsid reptiles containing all reptiles more closely related to archosaurs (such as crocodilians and dinosaurs, including birds) rather than lepidosaurs (such as tuataras, lizards, and snakes). [1]