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alligators and caimans
Sign in to saveAlso known as Alligatoridae, Alligatorid, Alligatorids
The family Alligatoridae of crocodilians includes alligators, caimans and their extinct relatives.
OverviewAI-generated
Alligatoridae is a family of reptiles within the class Crocodylia and phylum Chordata. The taxon is classified under the parent group Globidonta and is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Its scientific name was established by Gray in 1845, and the family is currently accepted in taxonomic records. The common name for the group is aligatorowate.
The family originated in the Cretaceous period, with a start time of about 83 million years ago. Members of Alligatoridae inhabit brackish and freshwater environments. The taxon is described in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and is referenced by 256 other encyclopedia articles.
Synthesized by Vinony from 19 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, WoRMS, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Species
Family
- PhylumChordata
- ClassCrocodylia
- FamilyAlligatoridae
短吻鳄科（学名：Alligatoridae）也称鼍科，为爬行纲鳄目的一科，因吻部短而宽，故名。现仅存4属8种。 短吻鳄属（Alligator） 扬子鳄（Alligator sinensis） 密西西比鳄（Alligator mississippiensis） 凯门鳄属（Caiman） 眼镜凯门鳄（Caiman crocodilus） 宽吻凯门鳄（Caiman latirostris） 巴拉圭凯门鳄（Caiman yacare） 黑鳄属（Melanosuchus） 黑凯门鳄（Melanosuchus niger） 古鳄属（Paleosuchus） 钝吻古鳄（Paleosuchus palpebrosus） 锥吻古鳄（Paleosuchus trigonatus）
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Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Phylogeny
- Evolution
- True alligators
- Caimans
- Taxonomy
- References
- External links
The family Alligatoridae of crocodilians includes alligators, caimans and their extinct relatives.
==Phylogeny== thumb|A. olseni fore limb thumb|right|Alligator prenasalis fossil The superfamily Alligatoroidea includes all crocodilians (fossil and extant) that are more closely related to the American alligator than to either the Nile crocodile or the gharial. This is a stem-based definition for alligators, and is more inclusive than the crown group Alligatoridae. As a crown group, Alligatoridae only includes the last common ancestor of all extant (living) alligators, caimans, and their descendants (living or extinct), whereas Alligatoroidea, as a stem-based group, also includes more basal extinct alligator ancestors that are more closely related to living alligators than to crocodiles or gavialids. When considering only living taxa (neontology), Alligatoroidea and Alligatoridae contain the same species.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “alligators and caimans” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.