Cladistics: Stauropterygia

After the World Scarring event devastated the planet, Eryobis was undone of all its previous volant vertebrates; namely the “Volichthyes”.

In the wake of the World Scarring, there would be two new groups of vertebrates taking to the sky.

The first of these were the Stauropterygians.

Stauropterygians come from a very early lineage of Eusymmetrodactyl Cryptognath Anisospondyls that started climbing “trees” as soon as plants grew tall again. Stauropterygians, sometimes also known as x-wings, are best known for their 4 wings that they can use with incredible dexterity. In many species these wings are roughly equal in size, but there’s also many where this is not the case, with either the upper or lower wings being larger.

Modern Stauropterygians can, for the most part, be classified into three main groups:

>Eustauroptera

>Rubieroptera

>Griphonoidea

Most scholars agree that griffins, Griphonoidea are the most basal and that Eustauroptera and Rubieroptera are the most closely related to each other and compose the group Stauroptera, but new genetic testing has provided a surprising lot of evidence that this is not the case. One study found that a group of strange “Eustauropterans” are actually highly advanced griffins and that the current Rubieroptera is not a monophyletic group, but rather a waste basket of basal Stauropterans.

Stauropterygians are one of, if not the most diverse group of Anisospondyls on Eryobis. They exist all around the world and come in every size from small hummingbird-like creatures to griffins that could give the largest Azhdarchids a run for their money. Besides dominating the sky, a surprisingly great amount of Stauropterygians have gone secondarily flightless over the course of their evolution and one of these has given rise to some of the largest, smartest and most dangerous predators on land.