Order Squamata
Infraorder Sauria (Lacertilia)
Infraorder Diploglossa (Anguinomorpha)

Family Anguidae (Glass Lizards and Alligator Lizards)

		Appearance: Limbless (Anguinae) or limbed lizards; all are heavily armored with scales (largely nonoverlapping) underlain by rectangular osteoderms. Commonly, a longitudinal ventrolateral fold separates the dorsal and ventral armor on each side, hence the name "lateral fold lizards". Diploglossines are elongate, limbed lizards, although their limbs are often greatly reduced. Gerrhonotines are broad-headed, heavy-bodied and -tailed lizards with short, strong limbs.Ophiodes has lost the forelimbs but retains tiny hindlimbs. Size: small (Elgaria parva, 5.5 - 7 cm snout-vent length) to large (Ophisaurus apodus, 50 - 52 cm SVL, 1.4 m total length maximum).
Anguis fragilis, Germany. © Peter Uetz

Distribution: Americas and Eurasia, Caribbean. Habitat: predominantly terrestrial or semifossorial, one genus arboreal (e.g. Abronia has a prehensile tail). Mostly in xeric and mesic habitats. Ophiodes and Ophisaurus inhabit open grasslands, Abronia pine-oak and cloud forests, and some Diploglossus live in rain forests.

Food: carnivorous.

Behaviour: Anguines are mainly diurnal foragers. Anguis fragilis and others autotomize when grasped suddenly (name!).

Reproduction: oviparous and ovoviviparous species: Anguis, Abronia, Barisia, Mesaspis, Celestus and Ophiodes are live-bearing. Ophisaurus and Gerrhonotus lay eggs. Diploglossus and Elgaria include both live-bearing and egg-laying species (Pough et al. 1997).

Relationships and taxonomic notes: Anguids are related to the Anniellidae which have been considered a subfamily of the Anguidae by some authors (e.g. Zug 1993, Pough et al. 1997). Macey et al. (1999) found that the anguid subfamilies Gerrhonotinae and Anguinae each form monophyletic groups receiving statistical support. However, the Diploglossinae*, which appears monophyletic, is retained as a metataxon (denoted with an asterisk) because its monophyly is statistically neither supported nor rejected. Note that these authors also found Anguis fragilis nested within Ophisaurus.

Recognition of Diploglossus versus Celestus remains a matter of controversy. Previous authors have argued that the condition of the claws and terminal sheaths of the digits, prefrontal scales, and osteoderms serve to distinguish these 2 genera. However, Campbell and Camarillo (1994) pointed out that the variable natures of these morphological characters render them unreliable diagnostic features. The nature of the claw sheaths, particularly, have been used by recent authors to distinguish Celestus (claws exposed) and Diploglossus (claws sheathed), but the extent to which the terminal dorsal scale(s) on the digits cover the claws can be negligible, partial, to almost complete depending on species, as demonstrated by Savage and Lips (1993).

List of genera:

Subfamily Anguinae

• Anguis
• Ophisaurus
• Pseudopus

Subfamily Diploglossinae

• Celestus
• Diploglossus
• Ophiodes

Subfamily Gerrhonotinae

• Abronia
• Barisia
• Coloptychon
• Elgaria
• Gerrhonotus
• Mesaspis

Abaculabronia, Aenigmabronia, Auriculabronia, Lissabronia, and Scopaeabronia are subgenera of the genus Abronia (Campbell & Frost, 1993). Sauresia and Wetmorena have been synonymized with Celestus by Hedges et al. (1992) and Hedges (1996).

Click on genus to get a list of species. Use the Search form for more sophisticated searches (HELP on Search).

Phylogenetic relationships based on DNA sequences (from Macey et al. 1999). Strict consensus of two equally most parsimonious trees produced from analysis of the 2001 aligned (1013 phylogenetically informative) positions. The tree has a length of 5452 steps and a consistency index of 0.394. Bootstrap values are presented above branches and decay indices below branches.

References:

Campbell J A; Camarillo R J L (1994)
A new lizard of the genus Diploglossus (Anguidae: Diploglossinae) from Mexico, with a review of the Mexican and northern Central American species.
Herpetologica 50 (2): 193-209

Campbell,J.A. & Frost,D.R. (1993)
Anguid lizards of the genus Abronia: revisionary notes, descriptions of four new species, a phylogenetic analysis, and key
Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 216: 1-121

Good,D.A. (1988)
A phylogenetic analysis of cranial osteology in the Gerrhonotine lizards.
J. Herpetol. 21 (4): 285-297

Good,D.A. (1988)
Phylogenetic Relationships Among Gerrhonotine Lizards. An Analysis of External Morphology
University of California Publ. in Zoology, Vol. 121, X + 139 pp.

Hedges, S. B., C. A. Hass, and L. R. Maxson. (1992)
Caribbean biogeography: molecular evidence for dispersal in West Indian terrestrial vertebrates.
Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. (UsA) 89:1909-1913.

Hedges,S.B. (1996)
In R. Powell and R. W. Henderson (eds.), Contributions to West Indian Herpetology: A Tribute to Albert Schwartz.
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Ithaca (New York). Contributions to Herpetology, volume 12.

Macey,J.R. et al. (1999)
Molecular phylogenetics, tRNA evolution, and historical biogeography in Anguid lizards and related txanomic families.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 12 (3): 250-272

Pough, F. Harvey, Robin M. Andrews, John E. Cadle, Mart Crump (1997)
Herpetology
Prentice Hall; 544 pp.

Rieppel, Olivier (1980)
The Phylogeny of Anguinomorph Lizards.
Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel, 86 pp.

Savage, J.M. & K.R. Lips (1993)
A review of the status and biogeography of the lizard genera Celestus and Diploglossus (Squamata: Anguidae), with description of two new species from Costa Rica.
Rev. Biol. Trop. 41 (3b): 817-842

Tihen, J. A. (1949)
The genera of Gerrhonotine lizards.
American Midland Naturalist 41 (3): 580-601

Tihen, Joe A. (1949)
A review of the lizard genus Barisia.
University of Kansas Science Bulletin 33 (3): 217-254

Wermuth,H. (1969)
Liste der rezenten Amphibien und Reptilien (Lfg. 90):
Anguidae, Anniellidae, Xenosauridae
Walter de Gruyter (Berlin)
XII + 41 pp.

Zug,G.R.; Vitt, L.J. & Caldwell, J.P. (2001)
Herpetology, 2nd ed.
Academic Press San Diego, London, [...]XIV + 630 pp.