Talk:Eryops

According to the "Encyclopedia Britannica" website, the amniote Limnoscelis is supposed to be the true link between amphibians and reptiles (including dinosaurs).
 * Eryops was not represented in the episode as having anything to do with the link between amphibians and reptiles. --OuroborosCobra talk 22:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As I recall, they (Chakotay and Janeway) were looking for the oldest common link between dinosaurs and humans. Both organisms evolved from amphibians. Limnoscelis is supposed to have had characteristics of both amphibians and reptiles. Ergo; it is (allegedly) the oldest link. Good-bye! ;-)


 * Actually, both organisms evolved from reptiles. Mammals evolved from mammal-like reptiles (of which synapsids like one pictured in the episode are members of), and dinosaurs evolved from Archosaurs, another type of reptile. Since both ancestors are reptiles, their latest common ancestor would also be a reptile, not an amphibian. --OuroborosCobra talk 21:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, in modern taxonomy the traditional classification of "reptile" is deprecated because it is a paraphyletic group. The nearest equivalent is the clade Sauropsida, which includes both modern reptiles and birds (and dinosaurs) but not the ancestors of mammals, the synapsids. Thus, speaking taxonomically, the most recent ancestor of both mammals and dinosaurs was neither a reptile nor an amphibian, but a non-Sauropsid amniote. (and it definitely wasn't Eryops, at any rate) -- Kingfisher 23:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)