The Triassic was a time of turmoil, as life recovered from the most devastating of all mass
extinctions, the Permo-Triassic event 252 million years ago. The Triassic marine rock …

Marine reptiles and mammals are phylogenetically so distant from each other that their
marine adaptations are rarely compared directly. We reviewed ecophysiological features in …

Sauropterygia was the most successful marine reptile radiation in history, spanning almost
the entire Mesozoic and exploiting a wide range of habitats and ecological niches. Here we …

The turtle body plan, with its solid shell, deviates radically from those of other tetrapods. The
dorsal part of the turtle shell, or the carapace, consists mainly of costal and neural bony …

In the past few years, new fossil finds and novel methodological approaches have prompted
intensive discussions about the phylogenetic affinities of turtles and rekindled the debate on …

The presence of gigantic apex predators in the eastern Panthalassic and western Tethyan
oceans suggests that complex ecosystems in the sea had become re-established in these …

The timing and pattern of biotic recovery from the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction remains
elusive. Here we report new material of the Early Triassic sauropterygian Lariosaurus …

Environmental changes governed the diversity of marine ecosystems and the evolution of
marine reptiles during the Jurassic. Abrupt climatic changes, mainly cooling, produced …

Records of Early Triassic marine reptiles, when they first emerged after the end Permian
mass extinction, are rare. During an excavation at Majiashan, Chaohu, Anhui Province, a …

Elasmosaurid plesiosaurians are renowned for their immensely long necks, and indeed,
possessed the highest number of cervical vertebrae for any known vertebrate. Historically …