The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus)—the only living member of the reptilian order
Rhynchocephalia (Sphenodontia), once widespread across Gondwana,—is an iconic …

Transitional fossils informing the origin of turtles are among the most sought-after
discoveries in palaeontology,,,,. Despite strong genomic evidence indicating that turtles …

Egg-laying mammals (monotremes) are the only extant mammalian outgroup to therians
(marsupial and eutherian animals) and provide key insights into mammalian evolution 1, 2 …

Avian genomes are small and streamlined compared with those of other amniotes by virtue
of having fewer repetitive elements and less non-coding DNA,. This condition has been …

THE tuatara is a large, iguana-like reptile whose main claim to fame is as the sole survivor of
a onceflourishing group whose heyday was the Triassic Period, more than 200 million years …

We present a draft genome sequence of the platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus. This
monotreme exhibits a fascinating combination of reptilian and mammalian characters. For …

Long-held ideas regarding the evolutionary relationships among animals have recently
been upended by sometimes controversial hypotheses based largely on insights from …

The Madtsoiidae were medium sized to gigantic snakes with a fossil record extending from
the mid-Cretaceous to the Pleistocene, and spanning Europe, Africa, Madagascar, South …

The Jurassic period is an important stage in early mammalian evolution, as it saw the first
diversification of this group, leading to the stem lineages of monotremes and modern therian …

THE traditional classification of reptiles is based on a single key character, the presence and
style of fenestration in the temporal region of the skull. Snakes, lizards, crocodiles, dinosaurs …