What is "sauria"

Sauria \Sau"ri*a\, n. pl. [NL., from Gr. ? a lizard.] (Zo["o]l.) A division of Reptilia formerly established to include the Lacertilia, Crocodilia, Dinosauria, and other groups. By some writers the name is restricted to the Lacertilia.

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.