Editing Alligatoridae (section)

==Evolution==
The superfamily [[Alligatoroidea]] is thought to have split from the crocodile-gharial lineage in the [[late Cretaceous]], about 87 million years ago.<ref name="Oaks2011" /><ref name="Pan2020" /> ''[[Leidyosuchus]]'' of [[Alberta]] is among the earliest known genera. Fossil alligatoroids have been found throughout Eurasia as land bridges across both the North Atlantic and the [[Bering Strait]] have connected North America to Eurasia during the Cretaceous, [[Paleogene]], and [[Neogene]] periods. Alligators and caimans split in North America during the early Tertiary or late Cretaceous (about 53 million<ref name="Pan2020">{{cite journal|last10= Wu|first10=X.-B.|last9= Zhang|first9=B.-W.|last8= Deng|first8=Y.-P.|last7= Ouyang|first7=J.-H.|last6= Jiang|first6=X.-Y.|last5= Lee|first5=P.-S.|last4= Yan|first4=P.|last3= Zhang|first3=H.-B.|last2= Miao|first2=J.-S.|last1= Pan|first1=T.|title= Near-complete phylogeny of extant Crocodylia (Reptilia) using mitogenome-based data|journal= Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society |year= 2020|volume=191|issue=4|pages=1075–1089|doi= 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa074}}</ref> to about 65 million years ago<ref name="Oaks2011">{{cite journal|last1= Oaks|first1= J.R.|title=A time-calibrated species tree of Crocodylia reveals a recent radiation of the true crocodiles |journal= Evolution |volume= 65|issue= 11|year= 2011|pages= 3285–3297|doi= 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01373.x|pmid= 22023592|s2cid= 7254442|doi-access= free}}</ref>) and the latter reached South America by the Paleogene, before the closure of the [[Isthmus of Panama]] during the Neogene period. The Chinese alligator split from the American alligator about 33 million years ago<ref name="Pan2020" /> and likely descended from a lineage that crossed [[Beringia|the Bering land bridge]] during the Neogene. The modern American alligator is well represented in the fossil record of the [[Pleistocene]].<ref>{{cite journal|doi= 10.2307/3889340|title= Phylogenetics, Taxonomy, and Historical Biogeography of Alligatoroidea|last=Brochu|first=Christopher A.|journal=Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir|volume=6|year=1999|pages=9–100|jstor=3889340}}</ref> The alligator's full [[mitochondrial genome]] was sequenced in the 1990s.<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Janke, A. |author2=Arnason, U. |year=1997|title=The complete mitochondrial genome of Alligator mississippiensis and the separation between recent archosauria (birds and crocodiles)|journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution|volume= 14|issue= 12|pages= 1266–72|pmid= 9402737|doi= 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025736|doi-access= free}}</ref> The full [[genome]], published in 2014, suggests that the alligator evolved much more slowly than mammals and birds.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Green RE, Braun EL, Armstrong J, Earl D, Nguyen N, Hickey G, Vandewege MW, St John JA, Capella-Gutiérrez S, Castoe TA, Kern C, Fujita MK, Opazo JC, Jurka J, Kojima KK, Caballero J, Hubley RM, Smit AF, Platt RN, Lavoie CA, Ramakodi MP, Finger JW, Suh A, Isberg SR, Miles L, Chong AY, Jaratlerdsiri W, Gongora J, Moran C, Iriarte A, McCormack J, Burgess SC, Edwards SV, Lyons E, Williams C, Breen M, Howard JT, Gresham CR, Peterson DG, Schmitz J, Pollock DD, Haussler D, Triplett EW, Zhang G, Irie N, Jarvis ED, Brochu CA, Schmidt CJ, McCarthy FM, Faircloth BC, Hoffmann FG, Glenn TC, Gabaldón T, Paten B, Ray DA |title=Three crocodilian genomes reveal ancestral patterns of evolution among archosaurs |journal=Science |volume=346 |issue=6215 |page=1254449 |year=2014 |pmid=25504731 |pmc=4386873 |doi=10.1126/science.1254449 }}</ref>