The first iguanian lizard from the Mesozoic of Africa

APESTEGUÍA, SEBASTIÁN; DAZA, JUAN D.; SIMÕES, TIAGO R.; RAGE, JEAN CLAUDE

Lima

Congreso; IX Congreso Latinoamericano de Paleontología; 2016

Sociedad Peruana de Paleontologia

The lizard group known as Acrodonta is currently distributed in Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Despite being one of the most diverse clade of iguanians acrodontan biogeographic history and early evolution remainspoorly known. In Africa, the earliest acrodontan representatives are from mid-Tertiary times. Acrodonts werepreviously regarded as being basal among squamates, and in the past few decades, research converged in thattheir defining characteristic is derived for both acrodonts and rhynchocephalians. Here, we presentthe first Mesozoic acrodontan from Africa, which also represent the oldest iguanian lizard from that continent.The new taxon comes from the Kem Kem Beds in Morocco and is based on apartial lower jaw. The new taxon exhibits a number of features that are found only among acrodontan lizards,and shares a large number of similarities with uromastycines. We assessed the phylogenetic placement of thisfossil using a combined evidence phylogenetic dataset comprehensive of all major acrodontan lineages, andusing multiple tree inference methods The fossil was found closely related to uromastycines, along with Gueragama sulamericana The new taxon supports the previously hypothesized widespread geographical distributionof acrodontans in Gondwana during the Mesozoic, particularly in Northern Gondwana, northwards from theCaiuá Desert, and the ancestry of uromastycine acrodontans in Africa.