Shinisauria

Shinisauria Temporal range: Early Cretaceous - present, 124.6–0 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Clade:	Platynota
Clade:	Shinisauria Conrad, 2008
Subgroups
†Dalinghosaurus †Merkurosaurus Shinisauridae

File:DalinghesaurusLongidigitus-PaleozoologicalMuseumOfChina-May23-08.jpg

Fossil of Dalinghosaurus longidigitus, the oldest known shinisaurian

Shinisauria is a clade or evolutionary grouping of anguimorph lizards that includes the living Chinese crocodile lizard Shinisaurus and several of its closest extinct relatives. Shinisauria was named in 2008 as a stem-based taxon to include all anguimorphs more closely related to Shinisaurus than to any other lizard. Several recent phylogenetic analyses of lizard evolutionary relationships place Shinisauria in a basal position within the clade Platynota, which also includes monitor lizards, helodermatids, and the extinct mosasaurs. Shinisaurians were once thought to be closely related to the genus Xenosaurus, but they are now considered distant relatives within Anguimorpha. The fossil record of shinisaurians extends back to the Early Cretaceous with Dalinghosaurus, which is from the Yixian Formation of China. Two other extinct shinisaurians are currently known: Bahndwivici from the Eocene of Wyoming and Merkurosaurus from the Early Miocene of the Czech Republic.