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Lepidosauria is a monophyletic group (i.e. a clade), containing all descendants of the last common ancestor of squamates and rhynchocephalians. [7] Lepidosaurs can be distinguished from other reptiles via several traits, such as large keratinous scales which may overlap one another.
Living lepidosaurs, which include snakes, lizards, and rhynchocephalians, occupy a wide range of environments and niches. [2] The lepidosaurs have many similar anatomical morphology like transverse cloaca, distal tongue, superficial teeth attachment, fused pelvic bones etc. [ 3 ] Though widely viewed as obligate carnivores, a small number of ...
Lepidosauromorpha (in PhyloCode known as Pan-Lepidosauria [2] [3]) is a group of reptiles comprising all diapsids closer to lizards than to archosaurs (which include crocodiles and birds). The only living sub-group is the Lepidosauria , which contains two subdivisions, Squamata , which contains lizards and snakes , and Rhynchocephalia , the ...
Lepidosauria — a suborder containing reptiles with overlapping scales. Subcategories. This category has the following 4 subcategories, out of 4 total. ...
Squamata and Rhynchocephalia form the subclass Lepidosauria, which is the sister group to the Archosauria, the clade that contains crocodiles and birds, and their extinct relatives. Fossils of rhynchocephalians first appear in the Early Triassic, meaning that the lineage leading to squamates must have also existed at the time. [4] [5]
Tuatara, along with other now-extinct members of the order Rhynchocephalia, belong to the superorder Lepidosauria, as do the order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes. Squamates and tuatara both show caudal autotomy (loss of the tail-tip when threatened), and have transverse cloacal slits.
Sauria was historically used as a partial equivalent for Squamata (which contains lizards and snakes). [5] The redefinition to cover the last common ancestor of archosaurs and lepidosaurs was the result of papers by Jacques A. Gauthier and colleagues in the 1980s.
However, many researchers have also favored a more traditional definition that includes the prehistoric araeoscelidians. In 1991, Laurin defined Diapsida as a clade, "the most recent common ancestor of araeoscelidians, lepidosaurs, and archosaurs, and all its descendants". [8] The clade Neodiapsida was given a phylogenetic definition by Laurin ...