Sceloporus Wiegmann

Castiglia, Riccardo, Annesi, Flavia, Bezerra, Alexandra M. R., García, Andrés & Flores-Villela, Oscar, 2010, Cytotaxonomy and DNA taxonomy of lizards (Squamata, Sauria) from a tropical dry forest in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, Zootaxa 2508, pp. 1-29 : 13

Sceloporus Wiegmann

The genus Sceloporus includes about 80 species of spiny lizards distributed from southern Canada south to Panama ( Sites et al. 1992). In many areas, Sceloporus represents an abundant and conspicuous genus of terrestrial vertebrates. For this reason it has often been subject of researches in many field of biology. Recent phylogenies of the genus based on morphology, karyotypes, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA ( Flores-Villela et al. 2000; Wiens and Reeder 1997) revealed the existence of different species groups and the inclusion of the genus “ Sator ” within Sceloporus . The karyotype of the genus is highly variable, with the diploid number ranging from 22 to 40 and the presence of sex chromosomes systems (with XY or X1X2 Y males) (data from the ‘‘chromorep’’ database available at site http://www.scienze.univpm.it/professori/chromorep.pdf.).