Callopistes

Callopistes flavipunctatus

Callopistes is a species-poor genus of lizards rail ( Teiidae ) that is found on the coast and the western Andean foothills of Loja in Ecuador through Peru to central Chile in western South America.

Features

Callopistes species are medium to large lizards, the snout-vent lengths of 16.6 ( Callopistes maculatus ) to 32.5 (C. flavipunctatus ) can achieve. Then there is the tail, which reaches about 2.3 times the body length. The front teeth of the maxilla ( upper jaw ) and mandibular teeth are laterally flattened -pointed and bent backwards. The teeth in the posterior jaw are tricuspid. The pupils are round.

In contrast to the extinct rail lizard subfamily Chamopsiinae are at Callopistes prefrontal and parietal different and flat (not concave), in contrast to all other extant rail lizards Callopistes has no femoral and Abdominalporen and a vertical fold of skin in front of the ear openings. In addition, the genus differs in its head scalation of all other rail lizards.

System

Callopistes was originally assigned to the subfamily Tupinambinae. However, phylogenetic analyzes of mitochondrial DNA and morphological studies show the Callopistes a very old line that has possibly been split off from the rest of the Paleocene Teiidae, and probably is the sister species of all other recent rail lizards. For the genus was therefore in 2012 established its own subfamily, the Callopistinae.

Species

• Callopistes flavipunctatus ( Dumeril & Bibron, 1839)
• Callopistes maculatus GRAVENHORST, 1838