Blanus
| Blanus | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
| Blanidae | ||||||||||||
| Kearney , 2003 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Blanus | ||||||||||||
| Wagler , 1830 |
Blanus is a genus of amphisbaenians (Amphisbaenia). The legless lizards have a disjoint distribution around the Mediterranean . They occur on the Iberian Peninsula , from Morocco to Algeria and from Turkey to Syria and Iraq .
features
Blanus species are serpentine and elongated. Her head is dull and has tiny, under-the-skin eyes. The scales are square, small, and arranged in regular transverse bands. The animals are flesh-colored to brown or purple in color.
Systematics
The genus used to be one of the real double snakes (Amphisbaenidae) but is now placed in its own family. Its sister group is the endemic genus Cadea on the Cuban island of Isla de la Juventud . The two taxa are said to have separated about 40 million years ago and the ancestors of the Cadea crossed the Atlantic on floating vegetation islands.
species
- Blanus aporus Werner , 1898
- Blanus alexandri Sindaco , Kornilios , Sacchi & Lymberakis , 2014
- Moorish networm ( Blanus cinereus ( Vandelli , 1797))
- Southwest Iberian networm ( Blanus mariae Albert & Fernández , 2009)
- Blanus mettetali Bons 1963
- Turkish networm ( Blanus strauchi ( Bedriaga , 1884))
- Blanus tingitanus Busack , 1988
literature
- Nicolas Vidal, Anna Azvolinsky, Corinne Cruaud, S. Blair Hedges: Origin of tropical American burrowing reptiles by transatlantic rafting. In: Biol. Lett. 2007, doi: 10.1098 / rsbl.2007.0531 .
- M. Kearney: Systematics and evolution of the Amphisbaenia: a phylogenetic hypothesis based on morphological evidence from fossil and recent forms. In: Herpetological Monographs. 17, 2003, pp. 1-75.
- M. Kearney, BL Stuart: Repeated evolution of limblessness and digging heads in worm lizards revealed by DNA from old bones. In: Proc. R. Soc. B 271, 2004, pp. 1677-1683, doi: 10.1098 / rspb.2004.2771 .
- Roberto Sindaco, Panagiotis Kornilios, Roberto Sacchi, Petros Lymberakis: Taxonomic reassessment of Blanus strauchi (Bedriaga, 1884) (Squamata: Amphisbaenia: Blanidae), with the description of a new species from south-east Anatolia (Turkey). In: Zootaxa . 3795 (3), 2014, pp. 311-326.
