EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Crocodilians are the most closely related group. They evolved before dinosaurs and experts put crocodiles in the larger family group, archosaurs.

Detailed explanation-2: -(Crocodilians are actually more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to other reptiles, i.e., lizards, snakes, and turtles.)

Detailed explanation-3: -Usually what people mean when they say birds are reptiles is that birds are more closely related to reptiles than anything else, and this is true in a way, but there are many types of reptiles. Birds are most closely related to crocodiles.

Detailed explanation-4: -Dinosaurs are archosaurs, a larger group of reptiles that first appeared about 251 million years ago, near the start of the Triassic Period. Some other non-dinosaur reptiles are also archosaurs, including pterosaurs (the now-extinct flying reptiles) and modern crocodiles and their ancestors.