Eunotosaurus africanus and the Gondwanan ancestry of anapsid reptiles
Date
2000
Authors
Modesto, Sean Patrick
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research
Abstract
Phylogenetic analyses confirm that the turtle-like Late Permian reptile Eunotosaurus africanus is a parareptile (sensu deBraga & Reisz 1996) and identify it as the sister taxon of Procolophonomorpha. The tree topology for anapsid reptiles suggests that a distribution in Gondwanan Pangaea is ancestral for anapsids (sensu Gauthier, Kluge & Rowe 1988). Minimum divergence times (MDTs) determined from stratigraphic calibration of anapsid phylogeny suggest that anapsids were diversifying in Early Permian Gondwana as early as the Sakmarian. MDTs also support the idea that a preservational bias was operating on terrestrial vertebrates in Gondwana prior to the onset of continental sedimentation in the Late Permian.
Description
Keywords
Anapsida, Eunotosaurus, Gondwana, palaeobiogeography, parareptiles