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DeAgamis2: 2nd INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON AGAMID LIZARDS
AGAMID LIZARDS: RESULTS AND PERPECTIVES OF STUDY OF TAXONOMIC AND MORPHOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
Natalia Ananjeva
Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences 1 Universitetskaya emb., St. Petersburg 199034, Russia E-mail: natalia_ananjeva@yahoo.com
One of important aspect of integrative study of lizards of Agamidae family is an analysis of morphological diversity within this group of squamates according to recognizing compositional, structural and functional biodiversity (Noss, 1990). Agamidae is morphologically and ecologically diverse family belonging to Iguania that is a sister group to all the remaining squamates (Sukhanov, 1961; Moody, 1980; Estes, 1983, 1985). Agamid lizards are characterized by acro-pleurodont dentition, lack of the in-travertebral autoto-my fracture plan existing in most other lizards and high structural diversity of integu-mental derivatives : scale sense organs, epidermal holocrine glands (femoral pores, callose scalation), and so on. There is a maximal diversity of attachment and replacement types in dentition within Ig-uania: pleurodont in Iguanidae, acrodont in Chamaeleonidae and pleuro-acrodont, or wholly acrodont (in Uromastyx and Moloch) in agamids. The study of structure and development of dentition revealed a special type of anlage of the eggteeth in Ig-uania in comparison with another squamates (Ser-geyev, 1940; Ananjeva, Orlov, 1986).
Family of Agamidae includes about 350 species belonging to about 50 genera. During last 20 years some more new genera and species of agamids were described and new concept on the phylogeny and biogeography of agamids was established bas-
ing on the results of study of the mitochondrial genome (Macey et al., 2000) and revealing of cryptic diversity within many genera and species complexes (Ananjeva, Orlov, 2006; Ananjeva et al., 2008).
Agamids demonstrate a high diversity of epidermal holocrine glands (femoral/inguinal folllicular glands, or pores, and precloacal/abdominal callous glands (Maderson, Chiu, 1970; Moody, 1980; Soko-lov et al., 1994). Femoral pores are typical for subfamilies Uromastycinae, Leiolepidinae, Hydrosauri-nae, Amphibolurinae (except Chelosania and Moloch). They are absent only in two most diverse subfamilies: Agaminae and Draconinae that characterized by the lack of lense-like scale sense organs. In agamids of genera Agama, Trapelus, Acanthocer-cus, Laudakia, only of Agaminae subfamily, unique morphological structures (epidermal holocrine glands) are recorded (Duisebayeva, 1995). There are contraversal points of view if these structures are homologous (Smith, 1935) or nonhomologous (Moody, 1980).
Agamid lizards are interesting and perspective models to study speciation and taxonomic diversity of arid territories and tropical forest.
Study was supported by Grant RFBI 09-0400132.
Key words: Squamata, Agamidae, morphology, taxonomic diversity, cryptic speciation.
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