Abstract
Mammals, birds, and squamates (lizards, snakes, and relatives) are key living vertebrates, and thus understanding their evolution underpins important questions in biodiversity science. Whereas the origins of mammals and birds are relatively well understood, the roots of squamates have been obscure. Here, we report a modern-type lizard from the Late Triassic of England [202 million years (Ma)], comprising a partial skeleton, skull, and mandibles. It displays at least 15 unique squamate traits and further shares unidentatan and anguimorph apomorphies. The new discovery fixes the origin of crown Squamata as much older than had been thought, and the revised dating shows substantial diversification of modern-type squamates following the Carnian Pluvial Episode, 232 Ma ago.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-18 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Science Advances |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 48 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2 Dec 2022 |
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Data from: A Triassic crown squamate
Benton, M. (Creator), Whiteside, D. I. (Creator) & Chambi-Trowell, S. A. V. (Creator), Dryad, 5 Dec 2022
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.hhmgqnkkr, http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.hhmgqnkkr and one more link, https://zenodo.org/record/7216523 (show fewer)
Dataset
Equipment
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HPC (High Performance Computing) and HTC (High Throughput Computing) Facilities
Alam, S. R. (Manager), Williams, D. A. G. (Manager), Eccleston, P. E. (Manager) & Greene, D. (Manager)
Facility/equipment: Facility