Reptilie Plan: Reptilie Rise of the reptiles Permian reptiles Reptilie

Permian reptiles[edit]
With the close of the Carboniferous, the amniotes became the dominant tetrapod fauna. While primitive, terrestrial reptiliomorphs still existed, the synapsid amniotes evolved the first truly terrestrial megafauna (giant animals) in the form of pelycosaurs, such as Edaphosaurus and the carnivorous Dimetrodon. In the mid-Permian period, the climate became drier, resulting in a change of fauna: The pelycosaurs were replaced by the therapsids.^[51]
The parareptiles, whose massive skull roofs had no postorbital holes, continued and flourished throughout the Permian. The pareiasaurian parareptiles reached giant proportions in the late Permian, eventually disappearing at the close of the period (the turtles being possible survivors).^[51]
Early in the period, the modern reptiles, or crown-group reptiles, evolved and split into two main lineages: the Archosauromorpha (forebears of turtles, crocodiles, and dinosaurs) and the Lepidosauromorpha (predecessors of modern lizards and tuataras). Both groups remained lizard-like and relatively small and inconspicuous during the Permian.
Mesozoic reptiles[edit]
The close of the Permian saw the greatest mass extinction known (see the Permian–Triassic extinction event), an event prolonged by the combination of two or more distinct extinction pulses.^[52] Most of the earlier parareptile and synapsid megafauna disappeared, being replaced by the true reptiles, particularly archosauromorphs. These were characterized by elongated hind legs and an erect pose, the early forms looking somewhat like long-legged crocodiles. The archosaurs became the dominant group during the Triassic period, though it took 30 million years before their diversity was as great as the animals that lived in the Permian.^[52] Archosaurs developed into the well-known dinosaurs and pterosaurs, as well as the ancestors of crocodiles. Since reptiles, first rauisuchians and then dinosaurs, dominated the Mesozoic era, the interval is popularly known as the "Age of Reptiles". The dinosaurs also developed smaller forms, including the feather-bearing smaller theropods. In the Cretaceous period, these gave rise to the first true birds.^[53]
The sister group to Archosauromorpha is Lepidosauromorpha, containing lizards and tuataras, as well as their fossil relatives. Lepidosauromorpha contained at least one major group of the Mesozoic sea reptiles: the mosasaurs, which lived during the Cretaceous period. The phylogenetic placement of other main groups of fossil sea reptiles – the ichthyopterygians (including ichthyosaurs) and the sauropterygians, which evolved in the early Triassic – is more controversial. Different authors linked these groups either to lepidosauromorphs^[1] or to archosauromorphs,^[54][55][56] and ichthyopterygians were also argued to be diapsids that did not belong to the least inclusive clade containing lepidosauromorphs and archosauromorphs.^[57]