The recent discoveries of a living saurian in New Zealand so closely allied to this supposed extinct division of the lacertilia seems to afford an illustration of a principle pointed out by Mr. Darwin of the survival in insulated tracts, after many changes in physical geography, of orders of which the congeners have become extinct on continents where they have been exposed to the severer competition of a larger progressive fauna.
"The Student's Elements of Geology"
Sir Charles Lyell
The supposition that all these types were rapidly differentiated out of lacertilia, in the time represented by the passage from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic formation, appears to me to be hardly more credible, to say nothing of the indications of the existence of Dinosaurian forms in the Permian rocks which have already been obtained.
"Critiques and Addresses"
Thomas Henry Huxley