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Gephyrosaurus
''Gephyrosaurus'' is a genus of early rhynchocephalian first described and named in 1980 by Susan E. Evans. They are distantly related to the extant ''Sphenodon'' (tuatara of New Zealand) with which they shared a number of skeletal features including a large tooth row along the side of the palatine bone (part of the palate) and posterior process of the dentary bone (part of the lower jaw). The type species, ''G. bridensis'', lived during Early Jurassic in Wales, UK. Whiteside & Duffin (2017) described the second species, ''G. evansae'', known from a partial maxilla recovered from Late Triassic (Rhaetian) fissure fills in Carboniferous Limestone in Somerset. They and other potential gephyrosaurids are the only rhynchocephalians to lie outside Sphenodontia in modern definitions of the group, and have been found to be more closely related to squamates in some phylogenetic analyses. Anatomical Description Limbs Observation of the skeletal elements of ''Gephyrosaurus bridensis'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gephyrosaurus
''Gephyrosaurus'' is a genus of early rhynchocephalian first described and named in 1980 by Susan E. Evans. They are distantly related to the extant ''Sphenodon'' (tuatara of New Zealand) with which they shared a number of skeletal features including a large tooth row along the side of the palatine bone (part of the palate) and posterior process of the dentary bone (part of the lower jaw). The type species, ''G. bridensis'', lived during Early Jurassic in Wales, UK. Whiteside & Duffin (2017) described the second species, ''G. evansae'', known from a partial maxilla recovered from Late Triassic (Rhaetian) fissure fills in Carboniferous Limestone in Somerset. They and other potential gephyrosaurids are the only rhynchocephalians to lie outside Sphenodontia in modern definitions of the group, and have been found to be more closely related to squamates in some phylogenetic analyses. Anatomical Description Limbs Observation of the skeletal elements of ''Gephyrosaurus bridensis'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gephyrosauridae
Gephyrosauridae was a family of rhynchocephalians that lived in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. The members of Gephyrosauridae were named lepidosaurs in 1985 by Michael Benton.The Paleobiology Database They are considered to be the only rhynchocephalians that lie outside of Sphenodontia, and in some analyses they are recovered as more closely related to squamates than to sphenodontians. Distribution Members of Gephyrosauridae are known from the ,Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the ...
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Rhynchocephalia
Rhynchocephalia (; ) is an order of lizard-like reptiles that includes only one living species, the tuatara (''Sphenodon punctatus'') of New Zealand. Despite its current lack of diversity, during the Mesozoic rhynchocephalians were a diverse group including a wide array of morphologically distinct forms. The oldest record of the group is dated to the Middle Triassic around 238 to 240 million years ago, and they had achieved a worldwide distribution by the Early Jurassic. Most rhynchocephalians belong to the group Sphenodontia ('wedge-teeth'). Their closest living relatives are lizards and snakes in the order Squamata, with the two orders being grouped together in the superorder Lepidosauria. Many of the niches occupied by lizards today were held by sphenodontians during the Triassic and Jurassic, although lizard diversity began to overtake sphenodontian diversity in the Cretaceous, and they had disappeared almost entirely by the beginning of the Cenozoic. While the modern tuat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Triassic
The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch of the Triassic Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch and followed by the Early Jurassic Epoch. The corresponding series of rock beds is known as the Upper Triassic. The Late Triassic is divided into the Carnian, Norian and Rhaetian Ages. Many of the first dinosaurs evolved during the Late Triassic, including ''Plateosaurus'', ''Coelophysis'', and '' Eoraptor''. The Triassic–Jurassic extinction event began during this epoch and is one of the five major mass extinction events of the Earth. Etymology The Triassic was named in 1834 by Friedrich von Alberti, after a succession of three distinct rock layers (Greek meaning 'triad') that are widespread in southern Germany: the lower Buntsandstein (colourful sandstone'')'', the middle Muschelkalk (shell-bearing limestone) and the upper Keuper (coloured clay). The Late Triassic Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleurodont
Pleurodont is a form of tooth implantation common in reptiles of the order Squamata, as well as in at least one temnospondyl. The labial (cheek) side of pleurodont teeth are fused (ankylosed) to the inner surface of the jaw bones which host them. The lingual (tongue) side of pleurodont teeth are not attached to bone, and instead are typically held in place by connective ligaments. This contrasts with thecodont Thecodontia (meaning 'socket-teeth'), now considered an obsolete taxonomic grouping, was formerly used to describe a diverse "order" of early archosaurian reptiles that first appeared in the latest Permian period and flourished until the end of t ... implantation, in which the teeth are set in sockets and surrounded by bone on all sides. References External links Tooth Implantation at palaeos.comOral Cavity of Reptiles - Anatomy and Physiology Dentition types Reptile anatomy {{Vertebrate anatomy-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bipedal
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' 'double' and ''pes'' 'foot'). Types of bipedal movement include walking, running, and hopping. Several groups of modern species are habitual bipeds whose normal method of locomotion is two-legged. In the Triassic period some groups of archosaurs (a group that includes crocodiles and dinosaurs) developed bipedalism; among the dinosaurs, all the early forms and many later groups were habitual or exclusive bipeds; the birds are members of a clade of exclusively bipedal dinosaurs, the theropods. Within mammals, habitual bipedalism has evolved multiple times, with the macropods, kangaroo rats and mice, springhare, hopping mice, pangolins and hominin apes (australopithecines, including humans) as well as various other extinct groups evolving the tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertebrae
The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates, Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic irregular bone whose complex structure is composed primarily of bone, and secondarily of hyaline cartilage. They show variation in the proportion contributed by these two tissue types; such variations correlate on one hand with the cerebral/caudal rank (i.e., location within the backbone), and on the other with phylogenetic differences among the vertebrate taxa. The basic configuration of a vertebra varies, but the bone is its ''body'', with the central part of the body constituting the ''centrum''. The upper (closer to) and lower (further from), respectively, the cranium and its central nervous system surfaces of the vertebra body support attachment to the intervertebral discs. The posterior part of a vertebra forms a vertebral ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should clearly demons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terrestrial Animal
Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g. cats, dogs, ants, spiders), as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water (e.g. fish, lobsters, octopuses), and amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats (e.g. frogs and newts). Some groups of insects are terrestrial, such as ants, butterflies, earwigs, cockroaches, grasshoppers and many others, while other groups are partially aquatic, such as mosquitoes and dragonflies, which pass their larval stages in water. Terrestrial animals tend to be more developed and intelligent than aquatic animals. Terrestrial classes The term "terrestrial" is typically applied to species that live primarily on the ground, in contrast to arboreal species, which live primarily in trees. There are other less common terms that apply to specific groups of terrestrial animals: * Saxicolous creatures are rock dwelling. "Saxicolous" is deriv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lepidosaurs
The Lepidosauria (, from Greek meaning ''scaled lizards'') is a subclass or superorder of reptiles, containing the orders Squamata and Rhynchocephalia. Squamata includes snakes, lizards, and amphisbaenians. Squamata contains over 9,000 species, making it by far the most species-rich and diverse order of reptiles in the present day. Rhynchocephalia was a formerly widespread and diverse group of reptiles in the Mesozoic Era. However, it is represented by only one living species: the tuatara (''Sphenodon punctatus),'' a superficially lizard-like reptile native to New Zealand. Lepidosauria is a monophyletic group (i.e. a clade), containing all descendants of the last common ancestor of squamates and rhynchocephalians. Lepidosaurs can be distinguished from other reptiles via several traits, such as large keratinous scales which may overlap one another. Purely in the context of modern taxa, Lepidosauria can be considered the sister taxon to Archosauria, which includes Aves (birds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predator
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the host) and parasitoidism (which always does, eventually). It is distinct from scavenging on dead prey, though many predators also scavenge; it overlaps with herbivory, as seed predators and destructive frugivores are predators. Predators may actively search for or pursue prey or wait for it, often concealed. When prey is detected, the predator assesses whether to attack it. This may involve ambush or pursuit predation, sometimes after stalking the prey. If the attack is successful, the predator kills the prey, removes any inedible parts like the shell or spines, and eats it. Predators are adapted and often highly specialized for hunting, with acute senses such as vision, hearing, or smell. Many predatory animals, both vertebrate an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reptile
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( tuatara). As of March 2022, the Reptile Database includes about 11,700 species. In the traditional Linnaean classification system, birds are considered a separate class to reptiles. However, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to other living reptiles, and so modern cladistic classification systems include birds within Reptilia, redefining the term as a clade. Other cladistic definitions abandon the term reptile altogether in favor of the clade Sauropsida, which refers to all amniotes more closely related to modern reptiles than to mammals. The study of the traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology. The earliest known proto-reptiles originated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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