Mosaic nature in the skeleton of East Asian crocodylians fills the morphological gap between “Tomistominae” and Gavialinae

Crocodylian systematics has long been confounded by conflicting hypotheses of higher level relationships—although molecular data sets strongly supported the sister‐taxon relationship of Tomistoma and Gavialis , morphological data sets placed Gavialis as sister to all other living taxa. One of the perceived difficulties in interpreting morphological character evolution on the molecular tree is the extensive character reversal occurring in...