Champsosaurs ("Choristodera") were a group of extinct reptiles.
They were semi-aquatic and the best known genus (Champsosaurus),
outwardly resembled today's gharials and false gharials (Crocodile-like
reptiles with long narrow jaws that lived in
India and
Malaysia respectively).
Champsosaurs appear to have evolved during either the
late
Triassic period, or
perhaps during the
Jurassic
(the earliest fossils
found to date come from Jurassic).
Unlike dinosaurs and most other
large reptiles, Champsosaurs survived the
Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction.
They did however become extinct during the Miocene epoch of the
Neogene period, perhaps around 20 million years ago.
It is not entirely clear how Champsosaurs are related to other reptiles.
One possibility is that they are descended from Archosauromorphs (the ancestors
of Archosaurs including dinosaurs
and crocodiles), but another is that they are descended from
Lepidosauromorphs (the ancestors of lizards, snakes and sphenodonts).
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Some 75 million years ago, one dinosaur ended its life. The dinosaur was an Albertosaurus -- distant cousin to the ferocious, meat-eating predator Tyrannosaurus Rex. But its death was also a beginning -- the start of its transformation into a fossil, which lay undiscovered for millennia until the forces of erosion brought the young dinosaur, once again, to light.
National Museum of Canada, Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources Unknown Binding (4 pages)
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