For a while, crocodile: crocodylomorph resilience to mass extinctions

Crocodylomorphs are the sole survivors of the pseudosuchian clade and have, thus far, endured two mass extinctions. Despite being stereotyped as “living fossils”, the characteristics that facilitated their survival remain largely unknown, but trends in other clades, such as mammals, suggest that dietary ecology may play a key role in persisting during and after mass extinctions. To test the role of dietary ecology in the survival of crocodylomorphs, we use geometric and linear morphometrics to quantify the cranial shape of crocodylomorphs through the Mesozoic and into the Cenozoic. We then compare these data to living amniotes and combine these results with additional morphological proxies, which together permit the reconstruction of dietary ecology. We find that crocodylomorph cranial morphology exhibits a greater disparity during much of the Mesozoic than today. Many extinct crocodylomorphs express morphologies that overlap with extant crocodylians and lepidosaurs, indicating a divers..., Photography of skulls in dorsal and lateral view, as well as raw landmark data derived from ImageJ., , # Data from: For a while, crocodile: crocodylomorph resilience to mass extinctions

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m905qfvb8](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m905qfvb8)

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset contains 2D photos of the entire dataset of extinct crocodylomorphs in dorsal and lateral view. Additionally, the comparative extant dataset of mammal, crocodylian, and lipidosaur photographs (also in dorsal and lateral view) originally published in Melstrom et al. (2021) are included.

All 2D landmark coordinates in lateral and dorsal views derived from FIJI landmarking as well as accompanying .csv files with additional data (clades, ages, and ecology), .nex files, and FAD LAD (i.e., first appearance datum; last appearance datum) files are located in .zip files.

An additional .zip file contains only crocodylomorph landmark data used for Procrustes disparity analyses.

The single R script to run geometric morphometric and disparity analyses is included.

A final...,