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Updated: May 29, 2025
They are usually moderate in size, but in places they seem to have found good conditions and prospered. A few years ago a Permian bed in Russia yielded a most interesting series of remains of Synapsid reptiles. Some of them were large vegetarian animals, more than twelve feet in length; others were carnivores with very powerful heads and teeth as formidable as those of the tiger.
We can, therefore, understand the gap in the record between the amphibia and the reptiles. From their structure we gather that they sprang from at least two different branches of the amphibia. Their remains fall into two great groups, which are known as the Diapsid and the Synapsid reptiles.
Another branch of the same order lived on the southern continent, Gondwana Land, and has left numerous remains in South Africa. The Diapsids are chiefly interesting, however, as the reputed ancestors of the colossal reptiles of the Jurassic age and the birds. * These Synapsid reptiles are more commonly known as Pareiasauria or Theromorpha.
The Plesiosaur seems to belong to the Synapsid branch. In the earlier Mesozoic we find partially aquatic representatives of the line, like the Nothosaur, and in the later Plesiosaur the adaptation to a marine life is complete. The skin has lost its scales, and the front limbs are developed into powerful paddles, sometimes six feet in length.
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