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Archosauromorpha

(Infraclass)

Overview

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An Infraclass in the Kingdom Animalia.

Taxonomy

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The Infraclass Archosauromorpha is a member of the Subclass Diapsida. Here is the complete "parentage" of Archosauromorpha:

The Infraclass Archosauromorpha is further organized into finer groupings including:

Orders

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Avetheropoda

Tetanurae, or "stiff tails", is a that includes most theropod dinosaurs, as well as birds. Tetanurans (or tetanurines) first appear during the early or middle Jurassic Period. [more]

Crocodylia

Crocodilia (or Crocodylia) is an order of large that appeared about 84 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period (Campanian stage). They are the closest living relatives of birds, as the two groups are the only known survivors of the Archosauria. Members of the crocodilian stem group, the clade Crurotarsi, appeared about 220 million years ago in the Triassic Period and exhibited a wide diversity of forms during the Mesozoic Era. [more]

Ichnites

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Neornithischia

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Ornithischia

Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct of beaked, herbivorous dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Greek ornitheos (?????e???) meaning 'of a bird' and ischion (?s????) meaning 'hip joint'. They are known as the 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs because of their bird-like hip structure, even though birds actually descended from the 'lizard-hipped' dinosaurs (the saurischians). Being herbivores that sometimes lived in herds, they were more numerous than the saurischians. They were prey animals for the theropods and were smaller than the sauropods. [more]

Prolacertiformes

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Pterosauria

Pterosaurs " class="IPA">/?t?r?'dækt?l/) were flying of the clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period (220 to 65.5 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the legs to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger. Early species had long, fully-toothed jaws and long tails, while later forms had a highly reduced tail, and some lacked teeth. Many sported furry coats made up of hair-like filaments known as pycnofibres, which covered their bodies and parts of their wings. Pterosaurs spanned a wide range of adult sizes, from the very small Nemicolopterus to the largest known flying creatures of all time, including Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx. [more]

Rhynchosauria

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Saurischia

Saurischia meaning 'lizard' and ischion (?s????) meaning 'hip joint') is one of the two , or basic divisions, of dinosaurs. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two orders, based on their hip structure. Saurischians ('lizard-hipped') are distinguished from the ornithischians ('bird-hipped') by retaining the ancestral configuration of bones in the hip. [more]

Thecodontia

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Trilophosauria

Trilophosaurs were lizard-like diapsid reptiles related to the archosaurs. The best known genus is Trilophosaurus, a herbivore up to 2.5 meters long. It had a short, unusually heavily-built skull, equipped with massive, broad flattened cheek teeth with sharp shearing surfaces for cutting up tough plant material. Teeth are absent from the premaxilla and front of the lower jaw, which in life were probably equipped with a horny beak. [more]

At least 5 species and subspecies belong to the Order Trilophosauria.

More info about the Order Trilophosauria may be found here.

Sources

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Last Revised: September 23, 2009
2009/09/23 00:11:01