A Morrison stem gekkotan reveals gecko evolution and Jurassic biogeography

Geckos are a speciose and globally distributed clade of Squamata (lizards, including snakes and amphisbaenians) that are characterized by a host of modifications for nocturnal, scansorial, and insectivorous ecologies. They are among the oldest divergences in the lizard crown, so understanding the origin of geckoes (Gekkota) is essential to understanding the origin of Squamata, the most species-rich extant tetrapod clade. However, the poor fossil record of gekkotans has obscured the sequence and timing of the assembly of their distinctive morphology. Here, we describe the first North American stem-gekkotan based on a three-dimensionally preserved skull from the Morrison Formation of western North America. Despite its Late Jurassic age, the new species already possesses several key characteristics of the gekkotan skull along with retained ancestral features. We show that this new stem gekkotan, and several previously named species of uncertain phylogenetic relationships, comprise a widesp..., , , # A Morrison stem gekkotan reveals gecko evolution and Jurassic biogeography

This dataset contains 5 supplementary datasets to our article A Morrison stem gekkotan reveals gecko evolution and Jurassic biogeography. They are as follows.

Set 1 contains our phylogenetic dataset, which is a modified version of the dataset of Gauthier et al., 2012. This dataset was assembled in Mesquite v 3.70. This file is labeled: \"Supplmental File 1-Helioscopos_Matrix.nex\"

Set 2 contains .tre files of the strict consensus trees of our maximum parsimony analyses of our dataset (both equal and implied weights and with and without a molecular constraint). These analyses were performed via new technology searches in TNT v 1.5. These files are named with the description of the paramaters used for each analysis, for example \"Constrained K12.tre\" is the tree file resulting from our implied weights analysis with weighting strength K=12 and a molecular constraint.

Set 3 contains 3D STL files of the segmented...