Iguanomorpha
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous–Recent
Leiocephalus personatus, a species of iguanian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Clade: Toxicofera
Clade: Iguanomorpha
Sukhanov, 1961
Suborder: Iguania
Cope, 1864
Subgroups

Iguania is an infraorder of squamate reptiles that includes iguanas, chameleons, agamids, and New World lizards like anoles and phrynosomatids. Using morphological features as a guide to evolutionary relationships, the Iguania are believed to form the sister group to the remainder of the Squamata,[1] which comprise nearly 11,000 named species, roughly 2000 of which are iguanians. However, molecular information has placed Iguania well within the Squamata as sister taxa to the Anguimorpha and closely related to snakes.[2] The order has been under debate and revisions after being classified by Charles Lewis Camp in 1923 due to difficulties finding adequate synapomorphic morphological characteristics.[3] Most iguanians are arboreal but there are several terrestrial groups. They usually have primitive fleshy, non-prehensile tongues, although the tongue is highly modified in chameleons.[citation needed] Today they are scattered occurring in Madagascar, the Fiji and Friendly Islands and Western Hemisphere.[4]

Classification

The Iguania currently include these extant families:[5][6]

Phylogeny

Below is a cladogram from the phylogenetic analysis of Daza et al. (2012) (a morphological analysis), showing the interrelationships of extinct and living iguanians:[3]

Iguanomorpha

†Hoyalacerta sanzi

Iguania
Chamaeleontiformes
Iguanoidea (=Pleurodonta)
Euiguana

The extinct Arretosauridae (Paleogene iguanians from Central Asia) are alternatively classified in either the Acrodonta with other Old World iguanians, or in Pleurodonta as a sister group to the Crotaphytidae.[7][8]

Conservation status

As of 2020 The IUCN Red List of endangered species lists 63.3% of the species as Least concern, 6.7% Near Threatened, 8.2 vulnerable, 9.1% endangered, 3.1% critically endangered, 0.3 extinct and 9.2% data deficient. The major threats include agriculture, residential and commercial development.[9]

References

  1. ^ Gauthier, Jacques A.; Kearney, Maureen; Maisano, Jessica Anderson; Rieppel, Olivier; Behlke, Adam D. B. (April 2012). "Assembling the Squamate Tree of Life: Perspectives from the Phenotype and the Fossil Record". Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. 53 (1): 3–308. doi:10.3374/014.053.0101. S2CID 86355757.
  2. ^ Vidal, N.; Hedges, S. B. (2005). "The phylogeny of squamate reptiles (lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians) inferred from nine nuclear protein-coding genes". Comptes Rendus Biologies. 328 (10–11): 1000–1008. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2005.10.001. PMID 16286089.
  3. ^ a b Daza, Juan D.; Abdala, Virginia; Arias, J. Salvador; García-López, Daniel; Ortiz, Pablo (2012). "Cladistic Analysis of Iguania and a Fossil Lizard from the Late Pliocene of Northwestern Argentina". Journal of Herpetology. 46 (1): 104–119. doi:10.1670/10-112. hdl:11336/61054. JSTOR 41515023. S2CID 85405843.
  4. ^ Moody, Scott M. (June 1985). "Charles L. Camp and His 1923 Classification of Lizards: An Early Cladist?". Systematic Zoology. 34 (2): 216–222. doi:10.2307/2413329. JSTOR 2413329.
  5. ^ Wiens, John J.; Hutter, Carl R.; Mulcahy, Daniel G.; Noonan, Brice P.; Townsend, Ted M.; Sites, Jack W.; Reeder, Tod W. (23 December 2012). "Resolving the phylogeny of lizards and snakes (Squamata) with extensive sampling of genes and species". Biology Letters. 8 (6): 1043–1046. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2012.0703. PMC 3497141. PMID 22993238.
  6. ^ Schulte, James A.; Valladares, John Pablo; Larson, Allan (2003). "Phylogenetic Relationships within Iguanidae Inferred Using Molecular and Morphological Data and a Phylogenetic Taxonomy of Iguanian Lizards". Herpetologica. 59 (3): 399–419. doi:10.1655/02-48. JSTOR 3893615. S2CID 56054202.
  7. ^ Alifanov, V. R. (2012-07-01). "Lizards of the family Arretosauridae Gilmore, 1943 (Iguanomorpha, Iguania) from the Paleogene of Mongolia". Paleontological Journal. 46 (4): 412–420. Bibcode:2012PalJ...46..412A. doi:10.1134/S0031030112040028. ISSN 1555-6174. S2CID 119087759.
  8. ^ Bolet, Arnau; Stubbs, Thomas L; Herrera-Flores, Jorge A; Benton, Michael J (2022-05-03). Zhu, Min; Perry, George H; Zhu, Min (eds.). "The Jurassic rise of squamates as supported by lepidosaur disparity and evolutionary rates". eLife. 11: e66511. doi:10.7554/eLife.66511. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 9064307. PMID 35502582.
  9. ^ https://www.iucnredlist.org/[vague]

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Iguania.
Categories