Aspidoscelis Fitzinger

Harvey, Michael B., Ugueto, Gabriel N. & Gutberlet, Ronald L., 2012, 3459, Zootaxa 3459, pp. 1-156 : 99

Aspidoscelis Fitzinger

Figure 62

Aspidoscelis Fitzinger 1843: 20 . Type species Lacerta sexlineata Linnaeus by monotypy.

Verticaria Cope 1869b: 158 . Type species Cnemidophorus hyperythrus Cope by original designation.

Diagnosis.— We know of no single unique diagnostic character of Aspidoscelis . However, Aspidoscelis and Holcosus are the only teiids with postanal plates in males. As in Holcosus , most Aspidoscelis have a wide scale (2–3X as wide as long) at the heel flanked postaxially by another wide scale (1.5–2X as wide as long). Unlike Holcosus (characters in parentheses), Aspidoscelis has homogeneous subdigital lamellae of the hand (subarticular lamellae enlarged; note, however, basal lamellae enlarged in some Aspidoscelis ) and the nostril positioned in front of the nasal suture (nasal suture passing through nostril). Aspidoscelis lacks a serrated row of supracaudals (present). The tongue of Aspidoscelis is not retractile into a lingual sheath, whereas a lingual sheath is present in all species of Holcosus .

Compared to other Teiinae , Aspidoscelis is further characterized by the following characters: nasal in contact with prefrontal, parietals three, nostril usually oval (round in A. angusticeps ), first supraciliary usually short, and preanal spurs and auricular flap absent.

Remarks.— Our study focused primarily on Neotropical teiids, and, a priori, we accepted Aspidoscelis monophyly as established by Reeder et al. (2002). For this reason, we included only four species ( Table 8) of this large genus in our phylogenetic analysis and scored eleven others (Appendix) for characters in the diagnosis. Thus, we do not include a complete “account” for the genus here.