Journal ArticleDOI
Mesozoic and Cenozoic squamates of Europe
TLDR
In the early Eocene, a big wave of dispersals reached Europe during a marked rise in temperature at the beginning of the Eocene (MP 7) as mentioned in this paper. But this wave did not strongly affect squamates in Europe.Abstract:
Squamates first appeared in Europe in the Middle Jurassic. They were lizards that already included some crown-group members. Faunas of the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous were more or less a continuation of the Middle Jurassic assemblage. The early Late Cretaceous was characterised by a peculiar fauna of marine pythonomorphs, while terrestrial forms were rare. In the subsequent levels of the Late Cretaceous, marine forms were mainly mosasaurids; terrestrial assemblages heralding modern ones began to take form during the Campanian–Maastrichtian. The Cretaceous–Tertiary event did not strongly affect squamates in Europe. After poor Paleocene faunas, a big wave of dispersals reached Europe during a marked rise in temperature at the beginning of the Eocene (MP 7). The Eocene fauna was rich, diverse and of tropical type. In western Europe, a sharp extinction event (‘Grande Coupure’) eliminated most squamates at the end of the Eocene, but its impact in central and eastern Europe is unknown. The Oligocene fauna was transitional between the ‘old’ Eocene and the modern Miocene faunas. By the late early Miocene (MN 3–MN 4), the fauna markedly changed when an important wave of dispersals entered Europe during a climatic optimum. From the late middle Miocene onward, the temperature has dropped. As a consequence, faunas became less rich and regionalisation occurred. Numerous extinctions and withdrawals took place during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene, leaving an impoverished fauna in Europe.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Island life in the Cretaceous - faunal composition, biogeography, evolution, and extinction of land-living vertebrates on the Late Cretaceous European archipelago
TL;DR: It is shown that there is no clear evidence that dinosaurs or other groups were undergoing long-term declines in Europe prior to the bolide impact, and the importance of the European record in understanding the end-Cretaceous extinction is discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mesozoic marine reptile palaeobiogeography in response to drifting plates
Nathalie Bardet,J. Falconnet,Valentin Fischer,Alexandra Houssaye,Stéphane Jouve,X. Pereda Suberbiola,Adán Pérez-García,Jean-Claude Rage,Peggy Vincent,Peggy Vincent +9 more
TL;DR: The distribution of Mesozoic marine reptile clades exhibit a cosmopolitan, or at least pandemic, distribution very early in their evolutionary history, and the acquisition of morphological adaptations to a fully aquatic life, combined to special thermophysiological characteristics, are probably responsible for these animals to become efficient long-distance open-marine cruisers as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Biotic and environmental dynamics through the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous transition: evidence for protracted faunal and ecological turnover
TL;DR: These patterns suggest that different extinction selectivity and ecological processes were operating between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, which were ultimately important in determining the fates of many key groups, as well as the origins of many major extant lineages.
Journal ArticleDOI
On the fossil record of the Gekkota.
TL;DR: A rigorous apomorphy based definition, recent advances in gekkotan morphology and phylogenetics, and diverse comparative material are applied to provide a comprehensive assessment of 28 known pre‐Quaternary geckos, updating the last such review, published three decades ago.
Journal ArticleDOI
Guelb el Ahmar (Bathonian, Anoual Syncline, eastern Morocco): First continental flora and fauna including mammals from the Middle Jurassic of Africa
Hamid Haddoumi,Ronan Allain,Saïd Meslouh,Grégoire Métais,Michel Monbaron,Denise Pons,Jean-Claude Rage,Romain Vullo,Samir Zouhri,Emmanuel Gheerbrant +9 more
TL;DR: The authors reported the discovery in Mesozoic continental "red beds" of Anoual Syncline, Morocco, of the new Guelb el Ahmar (GEA) fossiliferous sites in the Bathonian Anousal Formation, which produced one of the richest continental biotic assemblages from the Jurassic of Gondwana.
References
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Phylogenetic relationships within squamata
TL;DR: Camp, Charles Lewis ; Classification ; Congresses ; NH-Vertebrate Zoology ; Research Associate ; NMNH ; SDR
Book
The timetree of life
S. Blair Hedges,Sudhir Kumar +1 more
TL;DR: The timetree of life is discovered and cladograms, phenograms, and phylograms are extended to include plants, fungi, and animals.
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The Miocene Climatic Optimum: evidence from ectothermic vertebrates of Central Europe
TL;DR: In this article, two main migration events of thermophilic ectotherms at 20 Ma and 18 Ma in the Lower Miocene are discerned and indicate the beginning of the Miocene Climatic Optimum in Central Europe (42-45°N palaeolatitude) with a lower limit of the mean annual temperature (MAT) of their extant relatives.
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Assembling the Squamate Tree of Life: Perspectives from the Phenotype and the Fossil Record
TL;DR: This study relied on traditionally prepared specimens as well as high-resolution computed tomography scans that afforded unprecendented access to the cranial anatomy of Squamata to provide an unparalleled sample of the phenotype enabling it to more fully explore the extreme incongruences between molecular and morphological topologies for the squamate tree of life.