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| Author(s): |
Ana Bottallo de Aguiar Quadros
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB) |
| Defense date: | 2016-01-29 |
| Examining board members: |
Hussam El Dine Zaher;
Teresa Cristina Sauer de Ávila Pires;
Miguel Trefaut Urbano Rodrigues
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| Advisor: | Hussam El Dine Zaher |
| Abstract | |
Although squamates are commonly found in most Caenozoic south american fossil beds, complete skeletal materials are rare. Only a few examples exist, with most findings representing fragmentary cranial or jaw materials or isolated vertebrae. Among the known South American vertebrate fossil localities, the Chichínales formation rendered recently a mostly complete skull of a previously unknown teiid lizard. Given the associated fauna, the age of the formation is defined as Early Miocene (Colhuehuapense). Here, I show that this fossil represents a new species of the extant genus Callopistes through a phylogenetic analysis of extant and extinct squamates that includes 39 taxa and 149 osteological characters. I also provide a detailed description of the new fossil teiid based on both stereoscopical and high-resolution X−ray computed tomography (CT Scan) analyses. The data matrix was analyzed performing a equally weighted parsimony analysis using the software TNT Version 1.1 that resulted in four equally most parsimonius trees, which were then used to built a strict consensus tree. In all four trees, the fossil lizard was recovered within the Callopistes lineage, nested inside the family Teiidae. Nevertheless, I was unable to establish which of the two Callopistes species present in the analysis were more closely related to the fossil. The present distribution of the two extant species of Callopistes and the locality from where the fossil was recovered indicate that this genus had a much broader distribution in the past, reaching cis−Andean areas of Patagonia, apart from the trans−Andean areas where the two extant species are restricted (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 14/01733-4 - Morphological description and phylogeny of a lizard (Reptilia, Squamata) from the lower Miocene, Chichínales formation, General Roca, Rio Negro province, Argentina |
| Grantee: | Ana Bottallo de Aguiar Quadros |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |