The squamates (lizards, snakes, and relatives) today comprise more than 10,000 species, and yet their sister group, the Rhynchocephalia, is represented by a single species today, the tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus). The explosion in squamate diversity has been tracked back to the so-called Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, 100 million years ago, the time when flowering plants began their takeover of terrestrial ecosystems, associated with diversification...
