Re: dinos and birds

[ekaterina A <a_ekaterina@yahoo.com>]

--- Mickey Mortimer <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>
wrote:
> Assuming turtles are diapsids instead, reptiles are
> divided into two
> different groups-
> Lepidosauromorpha - containing lizards, snakes,
> sphenodonts, plesiosaurs,
> placodonts, ichthyosaurs, and perhaps turtles.
> Archosauromorpha - containing pterosaurs,
> crocodilians, birds and other
> dinosaurs, and perhaps turtles.

But molecular evidence seems to rather firmly support
the diaspid nature of turtles and also strongly
supports them being archosauromorphs.

A recent paper by Joyce  and Gauthier* suggest that
the earliest turtles may have been land living. I
favor the idea that they may have branched out from
one of the early archosauromorph lineages through
rapid divergence, perhaps from even within
"crurotarsi".

*Palaeoecology of triassic stem turtles sheds new
light on turtle origins.
Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2004 Jan 7;271(1534):1-5. 
-EA

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