In evolutionary taxonomy, reptiles are gathered together under the class Reptilia (/rɛpˈtɪliə/rep-TIL-ee-ə), which corresponds to common usage. Modern cladistic taxonomyregards that group as paraphyletic, since genetic and paleontological evidence has determined that crocodilians are more closely related to birds (class Aves), members of Dinosauria, than to other living reptiles, and thus birds are nested among reptiles from a phylogenetic perspective. Many cladistic systems therefore redefine Reptilia as a clade (monophyletic group) including birds, though the precise definition of this clade varies between authors.
IMO it’s either basically just lizards, which i think is perfectly fine since dinosaurs and even crocodilians aren’t that reptilian to me.
Or reptile has nothing to do with phylogeny and is instead just a physical description, like “fish” and “tree”.Really the only thing that seems particularly similar between lizards and crocodilians is that they have a splayed posture and scaly skin, which is kinda like grouping together humans with ostriches and kangaroos because we walk upright on two legs…
usually, in biology we use monophyletic groupings, like all descendants of rodents will always be rodents.
however, those terms “lizard/fish” are not monophyletic, because otherwise all vertebrates would be fish. those are paraphyletic (group includes some descendants of a common ancestors).
there are already polyphyletic, where we have descendants of multiple sources, ie, Herbivores would be polyphyletic.
Birds are reptiles in the same sense that people are fish.
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