Crocodyliform biogeography during the Cretaceous: evidence of Gondwanan vicariance from biogeographical analysis.

ABSTRACT: Explanations of the distributions of terrestrial vertebrates during the Mesozoic are currently vigorously contested and debated in palaeobiogeography. Recent studies focusing on dinosaurs yield conflicting hypotheses. Dispersal, coupled with regional extinction or vicariance driven by continental break-up, have been cited as the main causal factors behind dinosaur distributions in the Mesozoic. To expand the scope of the debate and test for vicariance within another terrestrial group, I herein apply a cladistic biogeographical method to a large sample of Cretaceous crocodyliform taxa. A time-slicing methodology is employed and a refinement made to account for the divergence times of the analysed clades. The results provide statistically significant evidence that Gondwana fragmentation affe

SUBMITTER: Turner AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1691824 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature