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Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic ('cold-blooded') metabolism and amniotic development.Living reptiles comprise four orders: Testudines (), Crocodilia (crocodilians), Squamata (lizards and snakes), and Rhynchocephalia (the tuatara).
This cladistic approach defines "tetrapods" as the nearest common ancestor of all living amphibians (the lissamphibians) and all living amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals), along with all of the descendants of that ancestor. In effect, "tetrapod" is a name reserved solely for animals which lie among living tetrapods, so-called crown tetrapods.
The evolution of tetrapods began about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period with the earliest tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fishes. [1] Tetrapods (under the apomorphy-based definition used on this page) are categorized as animals in the biological superclass Tetrapoda, which includes all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
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Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic ('cold-blooded') metabolism and amniotic development.Living reptiles comprise four orders: Testudines (), Crocodilia (crocodilians), Squamata (lizards and snakes), and Rhynchocephalia (the tuatara).
According to the current consensus, Aves and a sister group, the order Crocodilia, together are the sole living members of an unranked reptile clade, the Archosauria. Four distinct lineages of bird survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, giving rise to ostriches and relatives (Palaeognathae), waterfowl ...
The following list of reptiles lists the vertebrate class of reptiles by family, spanning two subclasses. Reptile here is taken in its traditional ( paraphyletic ) sense, and thus birds are not included (although birds are considered reptiles in the cladistic sense).
Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5.5 cm (2.2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds.