Archelosauria

Uncommon card · No. 158310

Archelosauria is a clade grouping turtles and archosaurs (birds and crocodilians) and their closest relatives, to the exclusion of lepidosaurs (the clade containing lizards, snakes and the tuatara). Most phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data (e.g. DNA and proteins) have supported a sister-group relationship between turtles and archosaurs. On the other hand, Archelosauria had not been historically supported by most morphological analyses, which have instead found turtles to either be descendants of parareptiles, early-diverging diapsids outside of Sauria, or close relatives of lepidosaurs within the clade Ankylopoda. Some recent morphological analyses have also found support for Archelosauria. In 2026. Jenkins et al found strong support on morphological grounds for Pantestudines (and thus, Archelosauria) to be nested within Archosauromorpha, with its ancestor being "protosaurian"-like, which is supported by some anatomical features of early Pantestudines.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Postdlf, CC BY-SA 3.0