Locomotor and postural diversity among reptiles viewed through the prism of femoral microanatomy: Palaeobiological implications for some Permian and Mesozoic taxa.

ABSTRACT: The water-to-land transition by the first tetrapod vertebrates represents a key stage in their evolution. Selection pressures exerted by this new environment on animals led to the emergence of new locomotor and postural strategies that favoured access to different ecological niches and contributed to their evolutionary success. Today, amniotes show great locomotor and postural diversity, particularly among Reptilia, whose extant representatives include parasagittally locomoting erect and crouched bipeds (birds), sub-parasagittal 'semi-erect' quadrupeds (crocodylians) and sprawling quadrupeds (squamates and turtles). But the different steps leading to such diversity remain enigmatic and the type of locomotion adopted by many extinct species raises questions. This is notably the case of cert

SUBMITTER: Gonet J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10093171 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature