Lepidosauromorpha

Common card · No. 368602

Lepidosauromorpha (in PhyloCode known as Pan-Lepidosauria) is a group of reptiles comprising all diapsids closer to lizards than to archosaurs (extant archosaurs are crocodiles and birds). The only living sub-group is the Lepidosauria, which contains two subdivisions, Squamata, which contains lizards and snakes, and Rhynchocephalia, the only extant species of which is the tuatara. The defining characters (synapomorphies) ancestral for Lepidosauromorpha include several characters of the skull and lower jaws, including the reduction in the size of the lacrimal bone, the posterior process (extension/growth) of the jugal bone being short, reduced or absent interdental (between teeth) plates/laminae, and the wall of bone enclosing the teeth from the mouth on the inner surface of the upper and lower jaws being reduced or absent, corresponding with the development of an ancestrally pleurodont dentition. Members of the group are ancestrally and are almost exclusively (with the exception of mosasaurs...

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