Another paper repeating the ‘sins’ of the past,
based on an incomplete taxon inclusion list (that also includes taxa that should not be included). And a huge amount of otherwise excellent work! It proves once again that first hand access to specimens and an overly large character list will not bring full resolution to a small taxon list cobbled together by tradition, rather than testing.
I envy, am proud of and have to feel sorry for
Martin Ezcurra (2016). He went around the world gathering data, obviously took a huge amount of time studying the specimens and writing this paper, but he’s stuck with that less than adequate traditional taxon list rather than the testing offered by the wide gamut taxon list (large reptile tree) in ReptileEvolution.com. He’s using 96 taxa (vs. 674 at ReptileEvolution.com). He’s using 600 characters. That should be more than enough, and it is more than enough (less than half that number will do), but more taxa is really what Ezcurra needs.
Just a few notes
Ezcurra wrote: “Jesairosaurus lehmani was described in detail by Jalil (1997). Despite its short neck, this species has been considered since its original description as a member of “Prolacertiformes.” Nevertheless, the phylogenetic position of this species has not been further tested in more recent quantitative analyses.” Yes it has, Here Jesairosaurus nests with drepanosaurs at the base of the Lepidosauriformes, not with Macrocnemus, as shown by Ezcurra (Fig. 1). Drepanosaurs were excluded by Ezcurra.

Figure 1. Ezcurra 2016 tree of basal archosauromorphs. He has basically repeated the mistakes of Nesbitt 2011 here. Colors denote taxa that lie outside the gamut of the Archosauriformes + Protorosauria under study here.
Ezcurra is still including the thalattosaur, Vancleavea which nests with Doswellia in the Ezcurra tree. It just doesn’t belong in a study on archosauriforms.
He still holds to the tradition of a monophyletic Diapsida proven invalid here.
Ezcurra is still including pterosaurs in an archosauriform study
Proterochampsia (now including Vancleavea) is still recovered by Ezcurra as the proximal outgroup. Phytosauria and Lagerpeton are sister taxa. How is this possible? What characters do they share? They certainly don’t look alike. He notes Peters (2000) then writes, “The phylogenetic analysis conducted here [Ezcurra 2016] constitutes the best data matrix compiled so far to test the position of pterosaurs within Archosauromorpha because of the broad sample of Permo-Triassic species, including the undoubted pterosaur Dimorphodon macronyx.” Martin, but you’re not looking, really looking at your results. Your proximal outgroup should look kind of like a pterosaur. Right?
Ezcurra notes that 33 extra steps
are needed to place Dimorphodon with Tanystropheidae and 19 synapomorphies support the Ornithodira. That might be true in his study. Hard to imagine how that is possible though. I will try to plow through his 600 characters to figure it out. Convergence is rampant in the Reptilia. More synapomorphies support pterosaurs outside the Ornithodira when pertinent taxa are not excluded (see below).
Ezcurra writes, “Future analyses focused on testing the higher-level phylogenetic relationships of pterosaurs should also incorporate a broader sample of early pterosaurs and some enigmatic diapsids that were found as more closely related to pterosaurs than to other archosauromorphs by Peters (2000) and are not included in the current taxonomic sample (i.e., Langobardisaurus pandolfi, Cosesaurus aviceps, Sharovipteryx mirabilis and Longisquama insignis). However, it seems extremely unlikely that the addition of these enigmatic diapsids, which are unambiguously considered to not be members of Archosauriformes (e.g., Peters, 2000; Senter, 2004), will affect the higher-level phylogenetic position of pterosaurs.”
In Science, the word ‘seems” and “extremely unlikely” need to be tested, especially when Langobardisaurus, for instance, shares so many traits with Tanystropheus and Macrocnemus. And especially when they have been tested sixteen years ago (Peters 2000). The word “enigmatic” is inappropriate here, unless Ezcurra just preferred to avoid them and stay with the traditional nod and move on.
Many good color photos of specimens here.
Precise descriptions. Like Nesbitt (2011) he’s just not playing with a full deck — of taxa.
Ezcurra’s tree
had 1.8 million+ possible MPTs. The large reptile tree was fully resolved with a single tree and high Bootstrap values. His analysis 3 recovered 40 MPTs by dropping largely incomplete taxa. That’s often a good idea. No reconstructions were offered, except for some skulls. No gradual accumulations of derived traits for odd partners like pterosaurs, Vancleavea, Doswellia, etc. Many purported sisters do not look alike.
Still not sure how
these trees don’t nest Tropidosuchus and Lagerpeton together. They are virtually identical.

Figure 2. Ezcurra tree with Bremer supports AFTER pruning incomplete taxa. Many oddly paired sisters still show up here.
Ezcurra comments on Choristodera
“The problematic phylogenetic position of choristoderans may be a result of an unsampled early evolutionary history. The phylogenetic position of choristoderans is also ambiguously resolved in this analysis, but is constrained to the base of either Lepidosauromorpha or Archosauromorpha.” Actually the early history is sampled (here), just not included in this analysis.
Ezcurra has to be feeling pretty confident.
He writes, “Much of the general topology of the phylogenetic trees recovered in this analysis agrees with that found by several previous workers (e.g., Sereno, 1991; Dilkes, 1998; Gottmann-Quesada & Sander, 2009; Ezcurra, Lecuona & Martinelli, 2010; Nesbitt, 2011; Ezcurra, Scheyer & Butler, 2014).”
I’d feel more confident
if all sister taxa looked alike and a gradual accumulation of traits could be traced for every taxon. Ezcurra needs more taxa to weed out the problems here. This study carries with it the sins of past studies.
PS
I was unable to open the Ezcurra data files on either Mesquite or MacClade.
References
016.The phylogenetic relationships of basal archosauromorphs, with an emphasis on the systematics of proterosuchian archosauriforms. PeerJ 4:e1778https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1778
Nesbitt SJ 2011. The early evolution of archosaurs: relationships and the origin of major clades. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 352:1–292 DOI 10.1206/352.1.
Peters D 2000. A reexamination of four prolacertiforms with implications for pterosaur phylogenesis. Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 106:293-336