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Synapsida [a] is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant reptiles and birds).
Although some diapsids have lost either one hole (lizards), or both holes (snakes and turtles), or have a heavily restructured skull (modern birds), they are still classified as diapsids based on their ancestry. At least 17,084 species of diapsid animals are extant: 9,159 birds, [3] and 7,925 snakes, lizards, tuatara, turtles, and crocodiles. [4]
The synapsid lineage became distinct from the sauropsid lineage in the late Carboniferous period, between 320 and 315 million years ago. [2] The only living synapsids are mammals, [3] while the sauropsids gave rise to the dinosaurs, and today's reptiles and birds along with all the extinct amniotes more closely related to them than to mammals. [2]
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 ...
Turtles, though not diapsids in a purely anatomical sense, qualify as members of the clade Diapsida due to their likely diapsid ancestry. Some diapsids, particularly modern lizards, have an infratemporal fenestra which is open from below due to a lack of contact between the jugal and quadratojugal bones.
In anapsids, the ancestral condition, there are none; in synapsids (mammals and their extinct relatives) there is one; and in diapsids (including birds, crocodilians, squamates, and tuataras), there are two. Turtles have secondarily lost their fenestrae, and were traditionally classified as anapsids because of this.
It's flu season right now, and the U.S. is in the midst of a wave that's straining hospitals. But not all influenza is the same. There are some notable differences between flu A and flu B strains ...
Archosaurs were probably better at conserving water than early synapsids because: 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 ...