Evolution and paleontology

Historical development

The first land vertebrates, the Tetrapoda, appeared about 397 million years ago, near the middle of the Devonian Period. Despite having limbs rather than fins, early tetrapods were not completely terrestrial because their eggs and larvae depended upon a moist aquatic habitat. The first tetrapods apparently soon diverged; one lineage became the amphibians (which retained the requirement for moisture-associated reproduction), whereas a second lineage yielded the Amniota during the Early Pennsylvanian Epoch (318 million to 312 million years ago). Fossils of these early amniotes are lacking. However, they must have appeared at this time because, for the Middle Pennsylvanian Epoch (312 million to 307 million years ago), fossils of synapsids (mammal-like reptiles) and early reptiles occur together in the same fossil beds. These earliest known synapsids and reptiles had already developed some traits that would persist in their descendants, modern mammals and reptiles. One example of a feature both groups held in common was the presence of extra-embryonic membranes (essentially, the amniotic sac) in early development, an adaptation that permitted the shift to a fully terrestrial egg.

Fossil distribution

The earliest known reptiles, Hylonomus and Paleothyris, date from Late Carboniferous deposits of North America. These reptiles were small lizardlike animals that apparently lived in forested habitats. They are the Eureptilia (true reptiles), and their presence during this suggests that they were distinct from a more primitive group, the anapsids (or Parareptilia). The early reptiles were usually small animals and generally were not as abundant as some of the synapsids, such as the sailback pelycosaurs (Edaphosaurus, Dimetrodon, and others). Assorted parareptiles occurred throughout the Permian Period (299 million to 251 million years ago), but they largely disappeared from the fossil record by the beginning of what was to become known as the “Age of Reptiles,” the Mesozoic Era (251 million to 65.5 million years ago). Nonetheless, they reappeared during the Late Triassic Epoch (229 million to 200 million years ago) as the first turtles, the most primitive of which was Proganochelys. Turtles regularly appear in fossil records thereafter. Of the eureptiles, the captorhinids were present throughout most of the Permian. These broad-headed lizardlike reptiles appear to have been agile carnivores of moderate size. They disappeared, apparently leaving no descendants, in the Late Permian, or Lopingian, Epoch (260 million to 251 million years ago).

With the possible exception of turtles (which are often labeled anapsids), modern reptiles and most reptiles of the Mesozoic Era are diapsids. One of the most-recognizable groups of diapsids is the lepidosauromorphs. This lineage, which is ancestral to today’s tuatara and squamates (lizards and snakes), appeared first during the Late Permian. Assorted squamates or squamate relatives began appearing in the Jurassic Period (200 million to 146 million years ago). During the Middle Jurassic Epoch (174.1 million to 163.5 million years ago), the earliest snakes evolved.

One of the main diversifications occurred within the suborder Sauria. Some of the most-specialized saurians, the ichthyosaurs and sauropterygians, appear first in the Early Triassic (251 million to 246 million years ago), and representatives of both groups occurred in the seas until the middle of the Cretaceous. The ichthyosaurs are reptiles with fishlike bodies; they were live-bearers because their body form prevented beaching to lay eggs. The sauropterygians included an assortment of marine creatures; this group included the plesiosaurs as well as forms that resembled modern-day turtles and walruses. The plesiosaurs have no modern-day analogs.

The archosauromorphs, a group of diapsids that includes the dinosaurs as well as modern crocodiles and birds, did not appear in the fossil record until the middle of the Triassic Period. The leather-winged pterosaurs, or “winged lizards,” were also archosauromorphs; they persisted throughout the remainder of the Mesozoic Era. Crocodylomorphs and dinosaurs were present in the Early Jurassic Epoch (200 million to 176 million years ago), and their descendants live today in the forms of the crocodiles and birds.

Distinguishing taxonomic features

Today’s reptiles represent only a fraction of the reptile groups and species that have lived; thus, reptilian classification depends upon fossil remains. As such, the higher levels of reptilian classification rely heavily on skeletal characters. Reptiles (class Reptilia) and mammals (class Mammalia) are the two surviving branches of the Amniota, which is a group characterized by the presence of amniotic membranes. Obviously, these embryonic structures are not present in the fossil record. However, one can recognize that they existed in the common ancestor of reptiles and synapsids by their presence in modern forms of each group. Cranial, vertebral, and limb-girdle skeletal traits are the major characters used for the higher categories of classification, and soft (fleshy) anatomical traits are used in addition in those groups with living relatives or where the fossil record has preserved such characters.