rhynchocephalia

He compared them to Rhynchocephalia, which includes the living tuatara.

I believe that's the last remaining member of the rhynchocephalia order, which is such an ancient creature.

Lizards are most closely related to a group called Rhynchocephalia, which includes the tuatara.

The following is a cladogram of Rhynchocephalia after Rauhut et al., 2012.

The Rhynchocephalia originated by the Middle Triassic period and were distributed worldwide.

Crocodiles, snakes, lizards, turtles, and even a rare specimen of Rhynchocephalia, the tuatera lizard.

Many disparately related species were subsequently added to the Rhynchocephalia, resulting in what taxonomists call a "wastebasket taxon".

This subclass includes Squamata and Rhynchocephalia.

At the time, Cope considered Aetosauria to belong to Rhynchocephalia, an order of reptiles that includes the living tuatara.

Gephyrosaurus is a genus of early Rhynchocephalia first described and named in 1980 by Susan E. Evans.

However, fossil records show that it once lived on mainland New Zealand and Rhynchocephalia as a whole was once distributed globally.

Fossils of the squamate sister group, the Rhynchocephalia, appear in the Early Triassic, meaning that the lineage leading to squamates must have existed as well.

However, today Rhynchocephalia is used to include Gephyrosaurus and Sphenodontia, while Sphenodontia excludes the former.

Skull shape and feeding strategy in Sphenodon and other Rhynchocephalia (Diapsida: Lepidosauria).

It is hypothesized that a common ancestor shared by the Rhynchocephalia and Squamata had a skull with an incomplete lower temporal bar but a rigid quadrate.

Dentary tooth shape in Sphenodon and its fossil relatives (Diapsida: Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia).

In some phylogenies Eosuchia has been treated (probably erroneously) as a sister lepidosaur taxon to Squamata and Rhynchocephalia.

First record of the early Mesozoic sphenodontian Clevosaurus (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia) from the Southern Hemisphere.

Tuatara are reptiles endemic to New Zealand and which, although resembling most lizards, are part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia.

As such, it is usually dumped in favour of a new, more restrictive name (for example, Rhynchocephalia or Thecodontia), or abandoned altogether (for example, Simia).

Although tuataras look like lizards they actually belong to a separate reptilian order called the Rhynchocephalia which were once dominant on land until all but one species, tuataras, died out.

Despite its current lack of diversity, the Rhynchocephalia at one time included a wide array of genera in several families, and represents a lineage stretching back to the Mesozoic Era.

Containing the Orders Ornithosauria, Crocodilia, Dinosauria, Squamta, Rhynchocephalia, and Proterosauria: British Museum of Natural History, London, 309pp.

A New Sphenodontian (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia) from the McCoy Brook Formation (Lower Jurassic) of Nova Scotia, Canada.