A single isolated parietal bone from the Fort Sill deposit of Oklahoma is described. It has a well-developed upper temporal opening, resembling that of the primitive South African diapsids. The parietal is compared with that of Araeoscelis and Youngopsis. Based on comparison with this parietal and the configuration of the rear skull table of millerosaurs and romeriids, the bone usually identifi...

Caiman crocodilus apaporiensis has been considered by several authors as an extreme of morphological variation within the Caiman crocodilus complex. Here, we evaluate its position in the Caiman crocodilus complex morphospace using morphological traits from head shape. We examined the holotype and seventeen paratypes of Caiman crocodilus apaporiensis Medem 1955 deposited at the Field Museum of N...

Skinks are usually grouped in a single family, Scincidae (1,579 species) representing one-quarter of all lizard species. Other large lizard families, such as Gekkonidae (s.l.) and Iguanidae (s.l.), have been partitioned into multiple families in recent years, based mainly on evidence from molecular phylogenies. Subfamilies and informal suprageneric groups have been used for skinks, defined by m...

Inthe year 1858 a few fragmentary fossils of limb-bones were submitted to my inspection by James Harrison, Esq., of Charmouth, Dorsetshire, obtained from the upper part of the "lower Lias," near that place. They included portions of a femur and of a tibia, in which the texture of the wall and the size of the cavity of the shaft showed them to have been parts of a Saurian of more terrestrial hab...

A new fossil showing affinities with extant Laemanctus offers the first clear evidence for a casquehead lizard (Corytophanidae) from the Eocene of North America. Along with Geiseltaliellus from roughly coeval rocks in central Europe, the new find further documents the tropical fauna present during greenhouse conditions in the northern mid-latitudes approximately 50 million years ago (Ma). Moder...

The glides of the lizard, Ptychozoon lionatum, with lateral cutaneous expansions tied and untied were measured and timed. Analysis demonstrated that untied animals traveled farther and at lower speeds than animals with expansions tied. Glide distances for untied lizards were negatively correlated with weight/surface area and with weight/snout-vent length. It is suggested that the primary functi...

Thirty specimens of sand lizard, Lacerta agilis, were analyzed and Ophionyssus saurarum was found on three of them. These parasitic mites were located in the ear opening of the host. The only lizard specimens which were infested were those that inhabit areas degraded by human activity.