ciało-człowieka: Crocodylia

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Crocodylia or Crocodilia () is an order of semiaquatic, predatory reptiles that are known as crocodilians. They appeared 83.5 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage) and are the closest living relatives of birds, as the two groups are the only known survivors of the Archosauria. Members of the crocodilian total group, the clade Pseudosuchia, appeared about 250 million years ago in the Early Triassic period, and diversified during the Mesozoic era. The order includes the true crocodiles (family Crocodylidae), the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), and the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae). Although the term "crocodiles" is sometimes used to r…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Euparkeria (; meaning "Parker's good animal", named in honor of W. K. Parker) is an extinct genus of archosauriform reptile from the Triassic of South Africa. Euparkeria is close to the ancestry of Archosauria, the reptile group that includes crocodilians, pterosaurs and dinosaurs (including birds). Fossils of Euparkeria, including nearly complete skeletons, have been recovered from the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone (CAZ, also known as the Burgersdorp Formation), which hosts the oldest advanced archosauriforms in the fossil-rich Karoo Basin. Tentative dating schemes place the CAZ around the latest Early Triassic (late Olenekian stage) or earliest Middle Triassic (early Anisian stage), approxi…

Evidence: 30 • authority: 92

The phylogenetic origin of turtles.. The evolutionary origins of turtles remain poorly understood. Molecular systematics posit a sister relationship between turtles and archosaurs, but morphological studies return conflicting hypotheses of turtle relationships both to other living reptiles and to their closest fossil relatives. The middle Permian Eunotosaurus africanus has been widely regarded as the oldest stem turtle, which makes it instrumental in recent discussions of the origins of turtles and their highly transformed anatomy. Here, we use anatomical observations derived from X-ray computed microtomography (μCT) of Eunotosaurus and candidate stem turtles to evaluate phylogenetic hypoth…

Evidence: 23 • authority: 92

The pseudosuchian record in paleohistology: A small review.. Archosauria originated around the Earth's largest biotic crisis that severely affected all ecosystems globally, the Permotriassic Mass extinction event, and comprises two crown-group lineages: the bird-lineage and the crocodylian lineage. The bird lineage includes the iconic pterosaurs, as well as dinosaurs and birds, whereas the crocodylian lineage includes clades such as aetosaurs, poposaurs, "rauisuchians," as well as Crocodylomorpha; the latter being represented today only by less than 30 extant species of Crocodylia. Despite playing important roles during Mesozoic and Cenozoic ecosystems, both on land and in water, Pseudosuch…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae in the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. The term "alligator" is likely an anglicized form of el lagarto, Spanish for "the lizard", which early Spanish explorers and settlers in Florida called the alligator. Early English spellings of the name included allagarta and alagarto. Alligators are notable for their ability to inhabit c…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Phorusrhacidae, colloquially known as terror birds, is a family of large carnivorous, mostly flightless birds that includes possibly several subfamilies containing many genera, including the eponymous Phorusrhacos. The exact number of genera is uncertain, as some taxa such as Brontornis may be different forms of bird instead. All phorusrhacids lived during the Cenozoic era in the Americas. However, fossils have been recorded from Africa and Europe that may belong to phorusrhacids. Possible specimens have also been discovered from the La Meseta Formation of Seymour Island, Antarctica, suggesting that this group had a wider geographical range in the Paleogene. While a majority of phorusrhacid…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

A new eucrocopodan archosauriform from the Middle Triassic of southern Brazil and the phylogeny of Euparkeriidae.. Archosauriformes comprise a diverse range of reptiles, including the crown-group Archosauria, which flourished during the Triassic Period. Early-diverging archosauriforms, such as proterosuchids and erythrosuchids, are becoming progressively well-known due to recent studies and consistently resolve at the base of the clade. More crownward, Eucrocopoda includes archosauriform taxa that increasingly approximate the ancestral archosaur body plan. Early-diverging eucrocopodan archosauriforms have a widespread paleogeographic record but remain poorly understood in terms of ingroup r…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Walking-and Running and Jumping-with Dinosaurs and Their Cousins, Viewed Through the Lens of Evolutionary Biomechanics.. Archosauria diversified throughout the Triassic Period before experiencing two mass extinctions near its end ∼201 Mya, leaving only the crocodile-lineage (Crocodylomorpha) and bird-lineage (Dinosauria) as survivors; along with the pterosaurian flying reptiles. About 50 years ago, the "locomotor superiority hypothesis" (LSH) proposed that dinosaurs ultimately dominated by the Early Jurassic Period because their locomotion was superior to other archosaurs'. This idea has been debated continuously since, with taxonomic and morphological analyses suggesting dinosaurs were "lu…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Cortical Evolution: Introduction to the Reptilian Cortex. Some 320 million years ago (MYA), the evolution of a protective membrane surrounding the embryo, the amnion, enabled vertebrates to develop outside water and thus invade new terrestrial niches. These amniotes were the ancestors of today’s mammals and sauropsids (reptiles and birds). Present-day reptiles are a diverse group of more than 10,000 species that comprise the sphenodon, lizards, snakes, turtles and crocodilians. Although turtles were once thought to be the most “primitive” among the reptiles, current genomic data point toward two major groupings: the Squamata (lizards and snakes) and a group comprising both the turtles and t…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Evolutionary assembly of crown reptile anatomy clarified by late Paleozoic relatives of Neodiapsida. Living reptiles include more than 20,000 species with disparate ecologies. Direct anatomical evidence from Neodiapsida, which includes the reptile crown-group and its closest extinct relatives, shows that this diversity originates from a single common ancestor that lived over 255 million years ago in the Paleozoic. However, the evolutionary assembly of crown reptile traits is poorly understood due to the lack of anatomically close relatives of Neodiapsida 1–7 . We present a substantially revised phylogenetic hypothesis, informed by new anatomical data from high-resolution synchrotron tomogra…