Shinisauridae Ahl, 1930

Conrad, J. L., 2008, Phylogeny And Systematics Of Squamata (Reptilia) Based On Morphology, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2008 (310), pp. 1-182 : 119

Shinisauridae Ahl, 1930

(figs. 54E, 55E, 56C)

DEFINITION: Shinisaurus crocodilurus , Bahndwivici ammoskius , and all descendants of their last common ancestor.

DIAGNOSIS: Shinisaurids are diagnosed by 58(0) linear interorbital margins of the frontal and 205(0) retroarticular process lacking medial deflection (a reversal).

COMMENTS: Shinisaurus has traditionally been considered a member of Xenosauridae (see above). Fan (1931) initially proposed the family Shinisauridae for Shinisaurus crocodilurus alone, but this group was demoted to subfamily by McDowell and Bogert (1954), a convention followed by many subsequent authors ( Rieppel, 1980a; Gauthier, 1982; though see Hu et al., 1984). Given the extremely long missing history of the shinisaurid lineage and its potential to receive morphologically divergent taxa, the name Shinisauridae is applied here at the node containing S. crocodilurus and Bahndwivici ammoskius following Conrad (2006b).