Quantitative studies of fossil data have proven critical to a number of major
macroevolutionary and macroecological discoveries, such as the 'Big 5'mass extinctions of …

The L ate J urassic to E arly C retaceous interval represents a time of environmental
upheaval and cataclysmic events, combined with disruptions to terrestrial and marine …

The largest phylogenetic analysis of ichthyosaurs to date is presented, with 114 ingroup taxa
coded at species level. Completeness of the taxa included varied from> 98% to< 2%; 10 …

Whether dinosaurs were in a long-term decline or whether they were reigning strong right up
to their final disappearance at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event 66 …

Mesozoic marine ecosystems were dominated by several clades of reptiles, including
sauropterygians, ichthyosaurs, crocodylomorphs, turtles, and mosasaurs, that repeatedly …

How clades diversify early in their history is integral to understanding the origins of
biodiversity and ecosystem recovery following mass extinctions. Moreover, diversification …

Pterosaurs, a Mesozoic group of flying archosaurs, have become a focal point for debates
pertaining to the impact of sampling biases on our reading of the fossil record, as well as the …

Bats (Chiroptera) are one of the most successful extant mammalian orders, uniquely
capable of powered flight and laryngeal echolocation. The timing and evidence for evolution …

The 24 extant crocodylian species are the remnants of a once much more diverse and
widespread clade. Crocodylomorpha has an approximately 230 million year evolutionary …

Fossil deposits with exceptional preservation (“lagerstätten”) provide important details not
typically preserved in the fossil record, such that they hold an outsized influence on our …