Callopistes
| Callopistes | ||||||||||||
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Callopistes flavipunctatus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the subfamily | ||||||||||||
| Callopistinae | ||||||||||||
| Harvey , Ugueto & Gutberlet Jr. , 2012 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Callopistes | ||||||||||||
| Gravenhorst , 1838 |
Callopistes is a species of poor species of the rail lizards (Teiidae) that occurs in western South America, on the coast and in the western Andean foothills from Loja in Ecuador via Peru to central Chile.
features
Callopistes species are medium-sized to large lizards with a head-trunk length of 16.6 ( Callopistes maculatus ) to 32.5 ( C. flavipunctatus ). In addition there is the tail, which reaches about 2.3 times the body length. The front teeth on the maxillary (upper jaw) and the lower jaw teeth are laterally flattened, single-pointed and curved backwards. The teeth in the back of the jaw are three-pointed. The pupils are round.
In contrast to the extinct rail lizard subfamily Chamopsiinae, Callopistes' frontal bone and parietal bone are different and flat (not concave), in contrast to all other recent rail lizards , Callopistes has no femoral and abdominal pores and a vertical fold of skin in front of the ear openings. In addition, the genus differs from all other rail lizards in terms of their scaling.
Systematics
Callopistes was originally assigned to the subfamily Tupinambinae . Phylogenetic analyzes of the mitochondrial DNA and morphological investigations, however, show that the Callopistes is a very old lineage, which may have split off from the other Teiidae as early as the Paleocene , and is probably the sister genus of all other recent rail lizards. A separate subfamily was therefore set up for the genus in 2012, the Callopistinae.
species
- Callopistes flavipunctatus ( Duméril & Bibron , 1839)
- Callopistes maculatus Gravenhorst , 1838
literature
- Michael B. Harvey, Gabriel N. Ugueto & Ronald L. Gutberlet, Jr .: Review of teiid morphology with a revised taxonomy and phylogeny of the Teiidae (Lepidosauria: Squamata) (= Zootaxa . 3459). Magnolia Press, Auckland 2012, ISBN 978-1-86977-987-0 .
