Cadea
| Cadea | ||||||||||||
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Head of Cadea palirostrata from above, below and from the side |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
| Cadeidae | ||||||||||||
| Vidal & Hedges , 2007 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Cadea | ||||||||||||
| Gray , 1844 |
Cadea is a species-poor, only two species-wide genus of the double sneak (Amphisbaenia). The legless lizards that live underground are endemic to Cuba and the island of Isla de la Juventud (Cuban Worm Lizards).
features
Cadea species are small, legless lizards and have no shoulder girdle or pelvis . Their maximum length is 26 cm. As with other double snakes, the body is curled by completely or partially surrounding skin folds (annuli). Osteoderms (skin bone plates) are absent on both the upper side of the body and on the abdomen.
species
- Cadea blanoides (Stejneger, 1916)
- Cadea palirostrata (Dickerson, 1916)
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 genus Blanus found in the Mediterranean region . The separation of the two taxa is said to have taken place around 40 million years ago and the ancestors of Cadea crossed the Atlantic on floating vegetation islands.
literature
- Laurie J. Vitt, Janalee P. Caldwell: Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles. Publisher: Elsevier Ltd, Oxford, ISBN 978-0123869197
- Nicolas Vidal, Anna Azvolinsky, Corinne Cruaud & S. Blair Hedges (2007): Origin of tropical American burrowing reptiles by transatlantic rafting. Biol. Lett., Doi : 10.1098 / rsbl.2007.0531
