Title
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
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