champsians, and phytosaurs)–possess an antorbital fenestra in the skull. Archosauria contains two subgroups: Pseudosuchia (the “crocodile-line” archosaurs) and Avemetatarsalia (the “bird-line” archosaurs) differentiated by unique ankle constructions. Pseudosuchia, despite meaning “false crocodiles,” contains the true crocodilians and assorted fascinating extinct groups like the armored aetosaurs, the sail-backed ctenosauriscids, and the ornithomimosaur-mimicking shuvosaurids. Avemetatarsalia contains the aphanosaurs and the large group Ornithodira, which splits into Pterosauromorpha and Dinosauromorpha. Pterosauromorpha contains the pterosaurs and (possibly) the lagerpetids (small, lightly-built, Triassic archosaurs). Dinosauromorpha contains dinosaurs and some non-dinosaur dinosauromorphs like silesaurids. Phylogenetic analyses consistently recover birds (Aves) within the Dinosauria, specifically the theropod dinosaurs, whereas traditional Linnaean taxonomy recognizes Aves (or possibly Avialae) as a Class distinct from Class Reptilia, which contains all of the rest of the archosaurs. Regardless of whether birds actually evolved from dinosaurs or other archosaurs–and they certainly did not–comparative anatomy shows numerous similarities between theropod dinosaurs and birds (e.g., O’Connor and Claessens 2006; Ostrom 1974; Pittman et al. 2022). Indeed, phylogenetic studies using molecular data from extant animals consistently recover crocodiles to be the sister taxa of Aves (e.g., Cotton and Page 2002; Fong and Fujita 2011; Zardoya and Meyer 1998). The relationship of birds to other archosauromorphs is outside the scope of this paper, but has been discussed and debated in other creationist publications (see, for example, some recent publications on the topic: Cserhati et al. 2020; McLain 2020; McLain et al. 2018; Surtees 2021; Thomas and Sarfati 2018). A. Recognizable Archosauromorph Group There are distinct, recognizable groups within Archosauromorpha that creationists might expect to be created kinds. Concerning archosauromorphs, vertebrate paleontologist Hans Sues wrote, “Whereas the individual clades can be readily diagnosed, there are relatively few features that unambiguously relate them to each other” (Sues 2019, p.159). These morphologically distinct groups are characterized by sudden appearances and disappearances in the fossil record. Figure 57 of Ezcurra (2016), reprinted here as Figure 2, illustrates these archosauromorph groups well. The first archosauromorph group on the phylogeny is Tanystropheidae (brown), followed by Allokotosauria (light blue), then Rhynchosauria (yellow), Proterosuchidae (red), Erythrosuchidae (orange), Proterochampsia (blue), Ornithodira (green), Phytosauria (purple), Ornithosuchidae (yellow-green), Gracilisuchidae (lime green), and Paracrocodylomorpha (maroon). Most of these groups are the equivalents of taxonomic families (hence the -idae ending), although some are larger (e.g., Rhynchosauria, Allokotosauria). Many archosauromorph taxa are not present in Figure 2, as the phylogeny and article (Ezcurra 2016) focus on “basal” archosauromorphs. Thus, enormous clades like Ornithodira (which phylogenetically includes all pterosaurs, dinosaurs, and birds) and Paracrocodylomorpha (which includes poposauroids, “rauisuchians,” and crocodyliforms) certainly contain many creatFigure 1. A simplified cladogram of archosauromorphs based on Ezcurra (2016), except in the placement of phytosaurs outside Archosauria, which follows Nesbitt (2011). All silhouette images from PhyloPic (https://phylopic.org) except Vancleavea and Trilophosaurus, which were made by Matthew McLain from NPS images. All PhyloPic images are public domain except the following: 1) Garjainia by Mark Witton (CC BY 3.0), 2) Euparkeria by Taenadoman CC BY-SA 3.0, 3) Chanaresuchus by Smokeybjb (CC BY-SA 3.0), 4) Ornithosuchus by Dmitry Bogdanov (CC BY-SA 3.0), 5) Smilosuchus by Robert Gay (CC BY-SA 3.0), and 6) Teleocrater, Ixalerpeton, and Asilisaurus by Scott Hartman (CC BY 3.0). Image licenses: CC BY 3.0 - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/; CC BY-SA 3.0 - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Figure 2. A reprint of Figure 57 from Ezcurra (2016) showing various clades of archosauromorphs color-coded, which correspond to morphologically distinct and recognizable groups. CC BY 4.0 - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. MCLAIN, CLAUSEN, PEREZ, BEEBE, AND AHTEN Archosauromorph Baraminology 2023 ICC 488
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=