Xenosaurus

Xenosaurus is a genus of lizards. Xenosaurus is the only extant genus in the family Xenosauridae with 12 species currently recognized.[2] Also known as the Middle American knob-scaled lizards found in southwestern Tamaulipas and eastern Guerrero on the Atlantic and Pacific versants of Mexico, respectively, south and east to Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.[3] They can bfound between 300 m and 2360 m of elevation in a wide variety of habitats ranging from xerophytic tropical scrub to cloud forest to tropical rain forest.[3] Where they occupy moderately diverse places, including crevices and holes in limestone, spaces under volcanic boulders, crevices in volcanic rocks, karst limestone, limestone terrain, and hollow logs in dry areas where trees are sparse.[3] A flattened body shape and a crevice-dwelling ecology generally characterize species in the group. In part because of their habitat specialization, all of the known species and subspecies are allopatric, and several have small geographic distributions.[3]Dorsal scales are heteromorphic, not imbrication, and some are conical or developed into enlarged tubercles separated by small granular scales. Ventral scales are flat, quadrate, and arranged in transverse rows. Head scales are generally small, tuberculate, and sometimes conical or rugose, but may be enlarged along the rostra and temporal ridges. Supraoculars also are enlarged, flattened, and in a single longitudinal row. The skin of the neck is loose and expanded, producing at least two angular fold.[4] These lizards are known to feed on a variety of crawling and flying insects. This genus mostly eats orthopterans, coleopterans (beetles), dipterans, and myriapods.[5]

Xenosaurus
Xenosaurus platyceps
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Family: Xenosauridae
Genus: Xenosaurus
W. Peters, 1861[1]

Species

The following 12 species are recognized as being valid.[2][6]

  • Xenosaurus agrenon King & F.G. Thompson, 1968
  • Xenosaurus arboreus Lynch & Smith, 1965
  • Xenosaurus fractus Nieto-Montes de Oca, Sánchez-Vega & Durán-Fuentes, 2018[7]
  • Xenosaurus grandis (Gray, 1856)
  • Xenosaurus mendozai Nieto-Montes de Oca et al., 2013
  • Xenosaurus newmanorum Taylor, 1949
  • Xenosaurus penai Pérez Ramos, de la Riva & Campbell, 2000
  • Xenosaurus phalaroantheron Nieto-Montes de Oca, Campbell & Flores-Villela, 2001
  • Xenosaurus platyceps King & Thompson, 1968
  • Xenosaurus rackhami L.C. Stuart, 1941
  • Xenosaurus rectocollaris H.M. Smith & Iverson, 1993
  • Xenosaurus tzacualtipanecus Woolrich-Piña & G.R. Smith, 2012

Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Xenosaurus.

References
  1. "Xenosaurus ". ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System). www.itis.gov.
  2. "Xenosauridae" and "Xenosaurus ". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.
  3. Nieto-Montes de Oca A, Barley AJ, Meza-Lázaro RN, García-Vázquez UO, Zamora-Abrego JG, Thomson RC, Leaché AD (January 2017). "Phylogenomics and species delimitation in the knob-scaled lizards of the genus Xenosaurus (Squamata: Xenosauridae) using ddRADseq data reveal a substantial underestimation of diversity". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 106: 241–253. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2016.09.001. PMID 27720785.
  4. Ballinger RE, Smith GR, Lemos-Espinal JA (2000). "Xenosauridae Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles" (PDF). Xenosautus. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles: 712.1–712.3.
  5. Lemos-Espinal JA, Smith GR, Ballinger RE (2003). "Diets of Three Species of Knob-Scaled Lizards (Genus Xenosaurus) from México". The Southwestern Naturalist. 48 (1): 119–122. doi:10.1894/0038-4909(2003)048<0119:DOTSOK>2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 3672749.
  6. "Xenosaurus". Dahms Tierleben (in German). Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  7. "A new species of knob-scaled lizard (Xenosauridae, Xenosaurus) from the Sierra Madre Oriental of Puebla, Mexico". Zookeys. Retrieved 3 April 2018.

Further reading
  • Peters W (1861). "Eine neue Gattung von Eidechsen, Xenosaurus fasciatus, aus Mexico [= A new genus of lizards, Xenosaurus fasciatus, from Mexico]". Monatsberichte der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie zu Berlin 1861: 453–454. (Xenosaurus, new genus). (in German).


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