- 【Updated on May 12, 2025】 Integration of CiNii Dissertations and CiNii Books into CiNii Research
- Trial version of CiNii Research Knowledge Graph Search feature is available on CiNii Labs
- 【Updated on June 30, 2025】Suspension and deletion of data provided by Nikkei BP
- Regarding the recording of “Research Data” and “Evidence Data”
Mosaic nature in the skeleton of East Asian crocodylians fills the morphological gap between “Tomistominae” and Gavialinae
-
- Masaya Iijima
- School of Resources and Environmental Engineering Hefei University of Technology 193 Tunxi Road, Baohe Hefei Anhui 230009 China
-
- Yoshitsugu Kobayashi
- Hokkaido University Museum N10W8 Kita‐ku Sapporo Hokkaido 0600810 Japan
Search this article
Description
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Crocodylian systematics has long been confounded by conflicting hypotheses of higher level relationships—although molecular data sets strongly supported the sister‐taxon relationship of<jats:italic>Tomistoma</jats:italic>and<jats:italic>Gavialis</jats:italic>, morphological data sets placed<jats:italic>Gavialis</jats:italic>as sister to all other living taxa. One of the perceived difficulties in interpreting morphological character evolution on the molecular tree is the extensive character reversal occurring in Gavialinae, the mechanism of which has yet to be explained. Here, we provide evidence of gavialine‐specific atavistic characters from East Asian “tomistomines”<jats:italic>Penghusuchus pani</jats:italic>and<jats:italic>Toyotamaphimeia machikanensis</jats:italic>. These taxa exhibit a mosaic assembly of “tomistomine” and gavialine features, which fill the gap between the two longirostrine groups. Although the parsimony analysis of morphological data (69 taxa, 254 characters) still supports the previous morphological hypothesis, the alternative tree that was forced to fit the molecular hypothesis was insignificantly (5/954 steps; 0.52%) longer than the unconstrained tree, suggesting that morphological evolution can also be interpreted on the molecular tree. Although the problem of stratigraphic gaps remains, future studies may be directed to resolving the interrelationships within Gavialoidea, a large longirostrine group of crocodylians, in the molecular tree context.</jats:p>
Journal
-
- Cladistics
-
Cladistics 35 (6), 623-632, 2019-01-20
Wiley