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31: (Case Study) Reptile radiation

  • Page ID
    22701
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    Learning Objectives

    After reading this chapter, students should be able to:

    • Define what the term ‘reptile’ really means
    • Discuss the early evolution of amniotes
    • Understand the path from synapsids to modern mammals
    • Interpret early sauropsids and their skull shapes
    • Differentiate between important diapsids, like archosaurs, squamata, pterosaurs, and sauropterygia
    It shows the major branches on the reptile tree.
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Cartoon of the reptile family tree, showing major amniote branches, mammal outgroups, and important and famous reptile lineages. Red lines at end of branches represents extinct groups. (Made by Callan Bentley and Matt Affolter.)


    This page titled 31: (Case Study) Reptile radiation is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Callan Bentley, Karen Layou, Russ Kohrs, Shelley Jaye, Matt Affolter, and Brian Ricketts (VIVA, the Virginia Library Consortium) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.