Revision to the LRT: basal tetrapods

Here’s a revision to the LRT
that is still being revised and studied (Fig. 1) following the addition of several taxa and two new characters.  I hope readers will report untenable relationships. Most of the taxa are still related to their prior sisters, but the order has changed here and there. It’s been interesting and enlightening going through this process.

A few novel nestings appear here.
As the days go by I will discuss and illustrate many of the interesting clades and sisters that were recovered here. For instance, earlier I reported Spathicephalus nesting with Tiktaalik.

Something that does not jump out immediately
is the genesis of tetrapods with fingers and toes deep enough into the Devonian to produce the highly derived near reptile with long digits, Tulerpeton, by the end of the Devonian, prior to the first appearance of nearly all tetrapod fossils with fingers and toes no sooner than the Early Carboniferous.

More reptile ancestors
Several more basal tetrapods are now in the direct lineage of the clade Reptilia. These formerly nested slightly elsewhere.

Middle Devonian tetrapod tracks
were reported earlier here. That trackmaker remains elusive. So the evidence for their presence is known, but the bones are not.

At ReptileEvolution.com
the web pages and their order will be updated this week. Currently the order does not reflect the tree topology shown above.