That, in turn, suggested that squamates had already split from other ancient reptiles before the Permian/Triassic mass extinction some 252 million years ago, and survived it. "When I first saw the fossil I realised it had important features that could link it to the early evolution of lizards," he said. So he hooked up with colleagues to perform a more detailed analysis of the tiny skeleton, which included CT scanning. Phylogenetics is the study of how different species relate to one another in the tree of life. For Simoes, the study is about more than the history of lizards.

Source: Bangkok Post May 30, 2018 18:45 UTC