Paleobiodiversity Charts

These phylogenetic spindle diagrams were plotted using my R package paleoDiv (https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.paleoDiv), with some occasional light edits in Inkscape, and are based on occurrence and taxonomic data from the paleobiology database. Keep in mind that these datasets are largely unedited (except for very glaring inaccuracies), and reflect a biased and incomplete fossil (and database) record, so take care to interpret them accordingly. Feel free to make use of these charts in your presentations or lectures, or to install paleoDiv yourself and give it a try! If you need any of these diagrams in a different format or have other questions or suggestions, feel free to contact me.

Basal Tetrapods

Diversity trends among Temnospondyli and other non-amniote Tetrapods in the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic


Marine Reptiles

Diversity trends among Permian and Mesozoic marine reptiles


Dinosaurs

Overview of major mesozoic dinosaur groups (traditional/Ornithischia-Saurischia model of phylogenetic relations), their living representatives (birds) and their closest extant relatives (crocodylomorphs). Also available as a poster (PDF, A4).


Saurischia

Major groups of saurischian dinosaurs.


Sauropodomorpha

Phylogeny and diversity of sauropodomorph dinosaurs.


Coelurosauria

Phylogeny and diversity of coelurosaurian theropods.


Ornithischia

Major monophyletic groups of ornithischian dinosaurs.


More detailed phylogeny of ornithischia representing some traditional paraphyletic groupings (e.g. basal ornithopods="hypsilophodonts", basal iguanodontians="iguanodonts") as spindles for illustrative purposes.


Synapsida

Diversity and phylogeny of basal (non-Mammaliaform) Synapsids of the Carboniferous to Triassic.


Mesozoic Mammaliaforms

Diversity and phylogeny of mesozoic mammaliaforms, including stem-mammals and stem-therians.


Mammals

Diversity and phylogeny of crown-group mammals. Also available as a poster (PDF, A4).

© Darius Nau 2025