The Permian world was dominated by sprawlers. After the extinction, however, one new group of reptiles evolved from these sprawlers but developed an upright posture—the archosaurs. This was a landmark evolutionary event. Sprawling is all well and good for cold-blooded critters that don’t need to move very fast. Tucking your limbs under your body, however, opens up a new world of possibilities. You can run faster, cover greater distances, track down prey with greater ease, and do it all more efficiently, wasting less energy as your columnar limbs move back and forth in an orderly fashion rather
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