Morphology forms the most fundamental level of data in vertebrate palaeontology because it is through interpretations of morphology that taxa are identified, creating the basis for broad evolutionary and palaeobiological hypotheses. Assessing maturity is one of the most basic aspects of morphological interpretation and provides the means to study the evolution of ontogenetic changes, population structure and palaeoecology, life-history strategies, and heterochrony along evolutionary lineages that would otherwise be lost to time. Saurian reptiles (the least-inclusive clade containing Lepidosauria and Archosauria) have remained an incredibly diverse, numerous, and disparate clade through their ~260-million-year history. Because of the great disparity in this group, assessing maturity of saurian reptiles is difficult, fraught with methodological and terminological ambiguity. We compiled a novel database of literature, assembling >900 individual instances of saurian maturity assessment, to examine critically how saurian maturity has been diagnosed. We review the often inexact and inconsistent terminology used in saurian maturity assessment (e.g. 'juvenile', 'mature') and provide routes for better clarity and cross-study coherence. We describe the various methods that have been used to assess maturity in every major saurian group, integrating data from both extant and extinct taxa to give a full account of the current state of the field and providing method-specific pitfalls, best practices, and fruitful directions for future research. We recommend that a new standard subsection, 'Ontogenetic Assessment', be added to the Systematic Palaeontology portions of descriptive studies to provide explicit ontogenetic diagnoses with clear criteria. Because the utility of different ontogenetic criteria is highly subclade dependent among saurians, even for widely used methods (e.g. neurocentral suture fusion), we recommend that phylogenetic context, preferably in the form of a phylogenetic bracket, be used to justify the use of a maturity assessment method. Different methods should be used in conjunction as independent lines of evidence when assessing maturity, instead of an ontogenetic diagnosis resting entirely on a single criterion, which is common in the literature. Critically, there is a need for data from extant taxa with well-represented growth series to be integrated with the fossil record to ground maturity assessments of extinct taxa in well-constrained, empirically tested methods.

中文翻译：

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评估已灭绝的蜥蜴类爬行动物的个体发育成熟度


形态学构成了古脊椎动物学中最基本的数据水平，因为通过对形态学的解释来识别分类单元，为广泛的进化和古生物学假设奠定了基础。评估成熟度是形态学解释的最基本方面之一，并提供了研究个体发生变化、种群结构和古生态学、生活史策略以及沿进化谱系的异时性的进化的手段，否则这些进化谱系将被时间遗忘。蜥蜴类爬行动物（包括鳞龙类和主龙类在内的包容性最少的进化支）在其约 2.6 亿年的历史中一直是一个极其多样化、数量众多且完全不同的进化枝。由于这个群体的巨大差异，评估蜥蜴爬行动物的成熟度很困难，充满了方法和术语上的模糊性。我们编制了一个新颖的文献数据库，汇集了超过 900 个蜥蜴成熟度评估的个体实例，以批判性地研究如何诊断蜥蜴成熟度。我们回顾了蜥蜴成熟度评估中经常使用的不准确和不一致的术语（例如“幼年”、“成熟”），并提供了更好的清晰度和交叉研究一致性的途径。我们描述了用于评估每个主要蜥蜴类群成熟度的各种方法，整合了现存和灭绝类群的数据，以充分考虑该领域的现状，并提供特定于方法的陷阱、最佳实践和富有成果的方法。未来的研究方向。我们建议在描述性研究的系统古生物学部分中添加一个新的标准小节“个体发生评估”，以提供具有明确标准的明确的个体发生诊断。 因为不同个体发生标准的效用在蜥蜴类中高度依赖于分支，即使对于广泛使用的方法（例如神经中枢缝合融合），我们建议使用系统发育背景，最好以系统发育支架的形式，来证明成熟度的使用是合理的。评估方法。在评估成熟度时，应结合使用不同的方法作为独立的证据，而不是文献中常见的完全基于单一标准的个体发生诊断。至关重要的是，需要将来自具有良好代表性生长系列的现存类群的数据与化石记录相结合，以通过严格约束的、经过经验检验的方法对灭绝类群进行地面成熟度评估。