A complete late Cretaceous iguanian (Squamata, Reptilia) from the Gobi and identification of a new iguanian clade

Title Variants

Alternative: Complete Gobi iguanian

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 3584

By

Conrad, Jack L.

Norell, Mark A.

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, NY American Museum of Natural History c2007

Notes

Title from caption.

"September 6, 2007."

Specimen collected during the Mongolian Academy of Sciences-American Museum of Natural History joint expeditions.

Iguania is a diverse clade with an incompletely known fossil record. Here, we describe and name the earliest iguanian known from a complete skeleton. The specimen (IGM 3/858) comes from Ukhaa Tolgod (Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia) and offers important insights into the evolutionary history of iguanian osteology. The new taxon is diagnosed by a combination of character states, including the presence of a frontoparietal fontanelle, absence of an enlarged nuchal fossa, and unflared tooth crowns. We performed a cladistic analysis including 54 taxa scored for 202 informative morphological characters. A strict consensus of 46 shortest recovered trees reveals that the new taxon is a basal member of a previously unidentified clade of Cretaceous iguanians, probably endemic to the Gobi. This clade of Gobi iguanians is nested within a monophyletic Pleurodonta (non-acrodontan iguanians).

Subjects

Cretaceous , Gobiguania , Iguanas , Iguanas, Fossil , Lizards , Lizards, Fossil , Mongolia , Paleontology , Phylogeny , Reptiles, Fossil , Saichangurvel davidsoni , Ukhaa Tolgod

Call Number

QL1 .A436 no.3584 2007

Language

English

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1206/0003-0082(2007)3584[1:ACLCIS]2.0.CO;2
OCLC: 171166203