The clade
Sauria was traditionally a suborder for
lizards which originally (before 1800) comprised crocodilians too. It has been redefined as the group containing the most recent common ancestor of
archosaurs and
lepidosaurs and all its descendants; as such it was commonly thought that Sauria is a crowned-base grouping of
diapsids. However, recent genomic studies and comprehensive studies in the fossil record suggest that
turtles are closely related to archosaurs, not to
parareptiles as previously thought. As such Sauria can be seen as a crowned-group of all modern
reptiles (including birds) within the larger total group
Sauropsida, which also contains various stem-reptile groups.