Lacertibaenia
| Lacertibaenia | ||||||||||||
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Sand lizard ( Lacerta agilis ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lacertibaenia | ||||||||||||
| Vidal & Hedges , 2005 |
The Lacertibaenia are a taxon (a systematic group) of the squamata (squamata). It includes the real lizards (Lacertidae) and the double snakes (Amphisbaenia) as well as the extinct genus Cryptolacerta .
According to the family tree of the scale creepers, which is based on molecular biological data, the real lizards and the double creeps are sister groups , the clade formed by both taxa is the sister group of the Tejuiformes.
features
The close relationship of these two outwardly different groups is based on molecular biological studies and is not supported by morphological characteristics. In the traditional squamate system, the real lizards are assigned to the skink-like (Scincomorpha) due to some similarities in their body structure . The similarities are based only on convergence , however , molecular biological findings clearly speak against a relationship. The double snakes are a group of predominantly worm-like, underground animals whose closest relatives were unclear for a long time.
The common ancestor of all Lacertibaenia is said to have lived in the Upper Cretaceous about 130 million years ago .
Systematics
The closest living relatives of Lacertibaenia are probably the Gymnophthalmoidea or Teiformata ( rail lizards ( Teiidae), Zwergtejus (Gymnophthalmidae) and Alopoglossidae ), the common taxon from Lacertibaenia and Gymnophthalmoidea is called Lacertoidea or Laterata.
Lacertibaenia cladogram : The following diagram shows the position of Cryptolacerta as a sister group of the double sneaks in a common clade with the lizards.
| Laterata (Lacertoidea) |
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swell
- T. Townsend, A. Larson, E. Louis, JR Macey: Molecular phylogenetics of squamata: the position of snakes, amphisbaenians, and dibamids, and the root of the squamate tree. In: Syst Biol. 53 (5), 2004, pp. 735-57. ( PMID 15545252 )
- Nicolas Vidal, S. Blair Hedges: The phylogeny of squamate reptiles (lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians) inferred from nine nuclear protein-coding genes . In: CR Biologies 328, 2005, pp. 1000-1008. ( PMID 16286089 )