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- Title
Fossil lizard from central Europe resolves the origin of large body size and herbivory in giant Canary Island lacertids.
- Authors
Čerňanský, Andrej; Klembara, Jozef; Smith, Krister T.
- Abstract
The endemic Canary Island lizard clade G allotia, which includes the largest members of Europe's dominant reptile group, Lacertidae, is one of the classic examples of insular gigantism. For the first time we use fossil data to test the evolutionary reasons for the association between gigantism and herbivory. We describe an almost completely preserved skeleton of J anosikia ulmensis comb. nov. from the early Miocene of Ulm, Germany ( MN 2a, ∼ 22 Mya). We show that this species and Oligocene P seudeumeces cadurcensis (Filhol, 1877) are in fact crown lacertids, and the first known pre-Quaternary record of the total clade of G allotia. P seudeumeces confirms the early origin of crown Lacertidae in the Palaeogene of Europe. More importantly, these fossil taxa show that large body size was already achieved on the European mainland by the early Miocene. Furthermore, P seudeumeces and J anosikia were faunivorous, thus demonstrating that insularity, not large body size, was crucial to the evolution of herbivory in this lineage. Body size change in G allotia was more complex than previously thought, encompassing size increase [e.g. in the extinct G allotia goliath (Mertens, 1942)], but more commonly involving miniaturization. The physical environment may play a crucial role in modulating the evolution of body size in this natural laboratory.
- Subjects
CENTRAL Europe; FOSSIL lizards; BL Lacertae objects; GIGANTISM (Disease); QUATERNARY Period
- Publication
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2016, Vol 176, Issue 4, p861
- ISSN
0024-4082
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/zoj.12340