Leiocephalus etheridgei
| Leiocephalus etheridgei | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Young Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Leiocephalus etheridgei | ||||||||||||
| Pregill , 1981 |
Leiocephalus etheridgei is an extinct species of lizard from the genus of the smooth-headed iguanas ( Leiocephalus ). The species is known from fossil jaw, skull and vertebral material from the Young Pleistocene Puerto Rico , which was described in 1981 by Gregory Pregill . The kind epithet honors the American herpetologist Richard E. Etheridge .
features
The holotype is a right half of the jaw from the Young Pleistocene, which was found in the Blackbone 1 Cave 1.2 km south of Barrio de Barahona in the Municipio de Morovis on Puerto Rico. Further material includes seven right and five left halves of the jaw, five jaw fragments, a right half of the upper jaw , one upper jaw fragment, three frontal bones, four basal bones, a fragment of the posterior sphenoid bone , a left wingbone bone , ten vertebrae , eight sacral vertebrae and two caudal vertebrae . Furthermore, one right and six left halves of the jaw were discovered in the Cuevo del Perro. Leiocephalus etheridgei had an estimated head-trunk length of up to 115 mm. A pointed, arched ridge is present on the anterior, lip-facing crown surface below the mental foramen . The anterior opening of Meckel's groove (an opening in the middle (inner) surface of the lower jaw from which the Meckel's cartilage emanates) extends anteriorly from the level of the sixth tooth to the pubic bone .
die out
Since no recent material has become known, it is believed that the species became extinct in the Young Pleistocene. A second species - Leiocephalus partidus - whose fossil material was also discovered in the Cueva del Perro, apparently survived until the Holocene.
literature
- Gregory Pregill: Late Pleistocene herpetofaunas from Puerto Rico. Misc. Publ. Univ. Kans. Mus. Nat. Hist. 71, 1981: p. 1-72
- Gregory K. Pregill: Systematics of the West Indian Lizard Genus Leiocephalus (Squamata: Iguania: Tropiduridae). Misc. Publ. Univ. Kans. Mus. Nat. Hist. 84, 1992: p. 1-69