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Pantestudines
Pantestudines or Pan-Testudines is the proposed group of all Reptile, reptiles more closely related to turtles than to any other living animal. It includes both modern turtles (crown group turtles, also known as Testudines) and all of their extinct relatives (also known as Stem-group, stem-turtles). Pantestudines with a complete shell are placed in the clade Testudinata. Classification The identity of the ancestors and closest relatives of the turtle lineage was a longstanding scientific mystery, though new discoveries and better analyses in the early 21st century began to clarify turtle relationships. They had frequently been considered relatives of the Captorhinidae, captorhinids, which also possessed an anapsid skull configuration. Later, the consensus shifted towards Testudinata's placement within Parareptilia, another "anapsid" clade. Analysis of fossil data has shown that turtles are likely diapsid reptiles, most closely related either to the archosaurs (crocodiles, bird, a ...
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Sauropterygia
Sauropterygia ("lizard flippers") is an extinct taxon of diverse, aquatic diapsid reptiles that developed from terrestrial ancestors soon after the end-Permian extinction and flourished during the Triassic before all except for the Plesiosauria became extinct at the end of that period. The plesiosaurs would continue to diversify until the end of the Mesozoic, when they became extinct as part of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Sauropterygians are united by a radical adaptation of their pectoral girdle, adapted to support powerful flipper strokes. Some later sauropterygians, such as the pliosaurs, developed a similar mechanism in their pelvis. Other than being diapsids, their affinities to other reptiles have long been contentious. Sometimes suggested to be closely related to turtles, other proposals have considered them most closely related to Lepidosauromorpha or Archosauromorpha, and/or the marine reptile groups Thalattosauria and Ichthyosauromorpha. Origins an ...
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Acerosodontosaurus
''Acerosodontosaurus'' is an Extinction, extinct genus of Neodiapsida, neodiapsid Reptile, reptiles that lived during the Late Permian of Madagascar. The only species of ''Acerosodontosaurus'', ''A. piveteaui'', is known from a natural wiktionary:mold_fossil, mold of a single partial skeleton including a crushed skull and part of the body and limbs. The fossil was discovered in deposits of the Lower Sakamena Formation. Based on skeletal characteristics, it has been suggested that ''Acerosodontosaurus'' individuals were at least partially Aquatic animal, aquatic. ''Acerosodontosaurus'' has generally been considered a "Younginiformes, younginiform", part of a Paraphyly, paraphyletic Evolutionary grade, grade of Permian Diapsid, diapsids which linked the most basal ("primitive") diapsids (Araeoscelidia, araeoscelidians such as ''Petrolacosaurus'') to more derived ("advanced") diapsids, including the earliest ancestors of modern reptiles such as Crocodilia, crocodilians and Lizard, li ...
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Pappochelys
''Pappochelys'' ( meaning "grandfather turtle" in Greek) is an extinct genus of diapsid reptile possibly related to turtles. The genus contains only one species, ''Pappochelys rosinae'', from the Middle Triassic of Germany, which was named by paleontologists and Hans-Dieter Sues in 2015. The discovery of ''Pappochelys'' provides strong support for the placement of turtles within Diapsida, a hypothesis that has long been suggested by molecular data, but never previously by the fossil record. It is morphologically intermediate between the definite stem-turtle '' Odontochelys'' from the Late Triassic of China and ''Eunotosaurus'', a reptile from the Middle Permian of South Africa. Description ''Pappochelys'' had a wide body, small skull, and a long tail that makes up about half of the total body length, which is up to . The skull is pointed with large eye sockets. Several turtle-like features are present, including expanded ribs and gastralia that seem to be precursors of a shel ...
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Odontochelys Semitestacea
''Odontochelys semitestacea'' (meaning "toothed turtle with a half-shell") is a Late Triassic relative of turtles. Before ''Pappochelys'' was discovered and ''Eunotosaurus'' was redescribed, ''Odontochelys'' was considered the oldest undisputed member of Pantestudines (i.e. a stem-turtle). It is the only known species in the genus ''Odontochelys'' and the family Odontochelyidae. Discovery ''Odontochelys semitestacea'' was first described from three 220-million-year-old specimens excavated in Triassic deposits in Guizhou, China. The locale of its discovery at one time was the Nanpanjiang Trough basin, a shallow marine environment surrounded on three sides by land. These deposits preserve an ecosystem known as the Guanling biota, which was dominated by marine reptiles. Description ''Odontochelys'' differed grossly from modern turtles. Modern turtles have a horny beak without teeth in their mouth. In contrast, ''Odontochelys'' fossils were found to have had teeth embedded in thei ...
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Reptile
Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocephalia. About 12,000 living species of reptiles are listed in the Reptile Database. The study of the traditional reptile orders, customarily in combination with the study of modern amphibians, is called herpetology. Reptiles have been subject to several conflicting Taxonomy, taxonomic definitions. In Linnaean taxonomy, reptiles are gathered together under the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), which corresponds to common usage. Modern Cladistics, cladistic taxonomy regards that group as Paraphyly, paraphyletic, since Genetics, genetic and Paleontology, paleontological evidence has determined that birds (class Aves), as members of Dinosauria, are more closely related to living crocodilians than to other reptiles, and are thus nested among re ...
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Eorhynchochelys
''Eorhynchochelys'' (meaning "dawn-beaked turtle" in Greek) is an extinct genus of stem-turtle from the Late Triassic Xiaowa Formation (or Wayao Member of the Falang Formation) of southwestern China. Description ''Eorhynchochelys'' is notable for its unusual combination of a turtle-style skull and a conventional reptilian body. The skull, for example, has an edentulous beak typical of all members of Testudinata. However, the thorax region is markedly different from '' Pappochelys'' and '' Odontochelys'' and more similar to ''Eunotosaurus ''Eunotosaurus'' (''Latin (language), Latin'': Stout-backed lizard) is an extinct genus of amniote, possibly a close relative of turtles. ''Eunotosaurus'' lived in the late Middle Permian (Capitanian stage) and fossils can be found in the Karoo ...'' in lacking a shell, even though the ribs were wide and flat. The skull also has a single pair of holes behind the skull, unlike the presence of two pairs of holes in ''Pappochelys''. Unlike othe ...
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Parareptilia
Parareptilia ("near-reptiles") is an extinct group of basal sauropsids (" reptiles"), traditionally considered the sister taxon to Eureptilia (the group that likely contains all living reptiles and birds). Parareptiles first arose near the end of the Carboniferous period and achieved their highest diversity during the Permian period. Several ecological innovations were first accomplished by parareptiles among reptiles. These include the first reptiles to return to marine ecosystems (mesosaurs), the first bipedal reptiles ( bolosaurids such as '' Eudibamus''), the first reptiles with advanced hearing systems ( nycteroleterids and others), and the first large herbivorous reptiles (the pareiasaurs). The only parareptiles to survive into the Triassic period were the procolophonoids, a group of small generalists, omnivores, and herbivores. The largest family of procolophonoids, the procolophonids, rediversified in the Triassic, but subsequently declined and became extinct by t ...
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Testudinata
Testudinata is the group of all tetrapods with a true turtle shell. It includes both modern turtles (Testudines) and many of their extinct, shelled relatives (stem-turtles), though excluding ''Odontochelys'' and ''Eorhynchochelys,'' which are placed in the more inclusive Pantestudines''.'' History It was first coined as the group containing turtles by Jacob Theodor Klein in 1760. In 1832-1836, Thomas Bell (zoologist), Thomas Bell wrote a book describing the Testudinata, which summarizes all the world's turtles, living and extinct, illustrated by forty plates by Jane S. Bell, James de Carle Sowerby and Edward Lear. It was first defined in the modern sense by Joyce and colleagues in 2004. While the ancestral condition for the clade is thought to be terrestrial, members of the subclade Mesochelydia, which contains almost all known testudinatans from the Jurassic onwards, are thought to be ancestrally aquatic. Classification The cladogram below follows an analysis by Jérémy A ...
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Eunotosaurus
''Eunotosaurus'' (''Latin (language), Latin'': Stout-backed lizard) is an extinct genus of amniote, possibly a close relative of turtles. ''Eunotosaurus'' lived in the late Middle Permian (Capitanian stage) and fossils can be found in the Karoo Supergroup of South Africa and Malawi. ''Eunotosaurus'' resided in the swamps of what is now southern Africa. Its ribs were wide and flat, forming broad plates similar to a primitive turtle shell, and the vertebrae were nearly identical to those of some turtles. Accordingly, it is often considered as a possible transitional fossil between turtles and their prehistoric ancestors. However, it is possible that these turtle-like features evolved independently of the same features in turtles, since other anatomical studies and phylogenetic analyses suggest that ''Eunotosaurus'' may instead have been a parareptile, an early-diverging neodiapsid unrelated to turtles, or a synapsid. Description ''Eunotosaurus'' reached up to in total body length. ...
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Placodont
Placodonts (" tablet teeth") are an extinct order of marine reptiles that lived during the Triassic period, becoming extinct at the end of the period. They were part of Sauropterygia, the group that includes plesiosaurs. Placodonts were generally between in length, with some of the largest measuring long. The first specimen was discovered in 1830. They have been found throughout central Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and China. Palaeobiology The earliest forms, like '' Placodus'', which lived in the early to middle Triassic, resembled barrel-bodied lizards superficially similar to the marine iguana of today, but larger. In contrast to the marine iguana, which feeds on algae, the placodonts ate molluscs and so their teeth were flat and tough to crush shells. In the earliest periods, their size was probably enough to keep away the top sea predators of the time: the sharks. However, as time passed, other kinds of carnivorous reptiles began to colonize the seas, such as ic ...
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