Cricosaura typica
© Rich Glor (reproduced by permission)
Order Squamata
Suborder Scincomorpha
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Cricosaura typica © Rich Glor (reproduced by permission) |
Appearance: relatively flat bodies and heads; immoveable, eyelids form a spectacle over each eye; elliptical, i.e. vertical pupils; geckolike with soft granular-scaled back and limbs but large plates on the head and ventrally on the trunk.A gular fold and a fold of skin on each side of the body.
Distribution: from the southwest US to Panama, Cuba (Cricosaura).
Habitat: in and under ground litter, in rock crevices, beneath the canopy of low, dense vegetation; from desert to forest habitats.
Size: < 10 cm snout-vent length
Food: insectivorous, partly herbivorous.
Behaviour: they are strictly diurnal (although they have been mistaken to be nocturnal because of their secretive life-style). Mostly sedentary.
Reproduction: several species are parthenogenetic; in fact, some parthenogenetic Lepidophyma species are bisexual and others are unisexual. All Xantusiids are viviparous (= live-bearing).
List of genera:
Note: The genus Klauberina has been synonymized with Xantusia.
Click on genus to get a list of species. Use the Search form for more sophisticated searches (HELP on Search).
Phylogenetic relationships of Xantusiid lizards (after Vicario et al. 2003)
Fifty percent consensus tree of 19,000 Bayesian trees derived from the combined data set (1109 bp from 12S,16S,and the cyt b gene fragments) from all 19 species (22 haplotypes) studied. Branch lengths are the means of the a posteriori distribution of branch lengths for each branch. For more details see Vicario et al. (2003).
Bezy,R.L. & Camarillo, J.L. (2002)
Systematics of Xantusiid lizards of the genus Lepidophyma.
Contributions in Science (493): 1&endash;41
Crother, B. I.;Miyamoto, M.;Presch, W. F. 1986
Phylogeny and biogeography of the lizard family Xantusiidae.
Systematic Zoology 35 (1): 37-45
HEDGES, S-B. BEZY, R-L. & MAXSON, L-R. (1991)
Phylogenetic relationships and biogeography of Xantusiid lizards
inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 8 (6): 767-780
Petzold,H.-G. in:
Klemmer,K., Wermuth,H. & Hediger,H., eds. (1979-1993)
Grzimeks Tierleben, Bd. 6: Kriechtiere
Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag
p. 275-279
Rieppel, O. (1984)
The structure of the skull and jaw adductor musculature in the
Gekkota, with comments on the phylogenetic relationships of the
Xantusiidae (Reptilia: Lacertilia).
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 82: 291-318.
Vicario, Saverio; Adalgisa Caccone and Jacques Gauthier (2003)
Xantusiid "night" lizards: a puzzling phylogenetic problem
revisited using likelihood-based Bayesian methods on mtDNA
sequences.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 26 (2): 243-261
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