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| Eosuchia Fossil range: Permian-Triassic |
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Eosuchians are an extinct order of diapsid reptiles. Depending on which taxa are included the order may have ranged from the late Carboniferous to the Eocene but the consensus is that eosuchians are confined to the Permian and Triassic.
A definition for inclusion in the order is difficult: it is almost easier to list the primitively-diapsid reptiles that have not been included at one time or another. The order has almost been treated almost as a dustbin for diapsids that are not obviously lepidosaurian or archosaurian. One consequence has been Romer's suggestion of the alternative order Younginiformes to be applied strictly to those forms with the primitive diapsid form, in particular, a complete lowermost arch as the quadratojugal and jugal bones of the skull meet. [1]
The one constant eosuchian has been Younginia, a small lizard-shaped reptile from the Upper Permian of South Africa. This and a couple of other genera, which may or may not be synonymous with Younginia, make up the family Younginidae.
The tangasaurids, a family that includes forms apparently adapted for swimming in fresh water, is also usually included.[2]
In some phylogenies Eosuchia has been treated (probably erroneously) as a sister lepidosaur taxon to Squamata and Rhynchocephalia.[3]
Classification
Eosuchia s.s. (Syn:Younginiformes)
- Family: Galesphyridae
- Family: Younginidae
- Family: Tangasauridae
References
- ^ http://tolweb.org/articles/?article_id=465 For example and discussion
- ^ http://www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/users/haaramo/metazoa/Deuterostoma/Chordata/Reptilia/Neodiapsida.htm Phylogeny treating Eosuchia in its strict sense
- ^ http://tolweb.org/Diapsida At one time or another all of the taxa in black in this phylogeny has been placed within "Eosuchia" in one sense or another
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 27 May 2008, at 00:33.
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