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A = Anapsid, B = Synapsid, C = Diapsid. It was traditionally assumed that first reptiles were anapsids, having a solid skull with holes only for the nose, eyes, spinal cord, etc.; [10] the discoveries of synapsid-like openings in the skull roof of the skulls of several members of Parareptilia, including lanthanosuchoids, millerettids, bolosaurids, some nycteroleterids, some procolophonoids and ...
Modern diapsids (lizards, snakes, crocodilians, birds) excrete uric acid, which can be excreted as a paste, resulting in low water loss as opposed to a more dilute urine. It is reasonable to suppose that archosaurs (the ancestors of crocodilians, dinosaurs and pterosaurs) also excreted uric acid, and therefore were good at conserving water.
Around 2 percent of lizard species, including many iguanids, are herbivores. Adults of these species eat plant parts like flowers, leaves, stems and fruit, while juveniles eat more insects. Plant parts can be hard to digest, and, as they get closer to adulthood, juvenile iguanas eat faeces from adults to acquire the microflora necessary for ...
The saurischian hip structure led Seeley to name them "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs, because they retained the ancestral hip anatomy also found in modern lizards and other reptiles. He named ornithischians "bird-hipped" dinosaurs because their hip arrangement was superficially similar to that of birds, though he did not propose any specific ...
SAO JOAO DO POLESINE, Brazil (Reuters) -Scientists in Brazil announced the discovery of one of the world's oldest fossils believed to belong to an ancient reptile dating back some 237 million ...
Evolutionary theory suggests that the Australian marsupials descended from the older ones found in the Americas. Geologic evidence suggests that between 30 and 40 million years ago South America and Australia were still part of the Southern Hemisphere super continent of Gondwana and that they were connected by land that is now part of Antarctica.
Marine reptiles are reptiles which have become secondarily adapted for an aquatic or semiaquatic life in a marine environment. Only about 100 of the 12,000 extant reptile species and subspecies are classed as marine reptiles, including marine iguanas , sea snakes , sea turtles and saltwater crocodiles .
Sauropsida (Greek for "lizard faces") is a clade of amniotes, broadly equivalent to the class Reptilia, though typically used in a broader sense to also include extinct stem-group relatives of modern reptiles and birds (which, as theropod dinosaurs, are nested within reptiles as more closely related to crocodilians than to lizards or turtles). [2]