Sauria
LepidosauromorphaArchosauromorphaSauria is also the name of a fictional
planet in the
Star Fox series.
Sauria is a
clade of the reptilian family tree, that includes all living
diapsids, as well as their
common ancestor and all its extinct descendants, which date back to
Permian times. The ancestral saurian was probably a small lizard-like creature.
The clade is defined by a number of details in skull and skeleton, and include the two important clades
Lepidosauromorpha and
Archosauromorpha.
The term "Sauria" has previously been used in a generic sense to refer to a suborder of
Squamata, including the lizards (
Lacertilia) as opposed to the snakes (
Ophidia), but this classification is no longer used, as Sauria so-defined is a
paraphyletic group.
* Callaway, J.M. (1997), Ichthyosauria: Introduction, in JM Callaway & EL Nicholls (eds.),
Ancient Marine Reptiles. Academic Press, pp. 3-16.
*
Sauria cladogram
