Crotaphytidae

The Crotaphytidae, or collared lizards, are a family of desert-dwelling reptiles native to the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Alternatively they are recognized as a subfamily, Crotaphytinae, within the clade Pleurodonta. They are very fast-moving animals, with long limbs and tails; some species are capable of achieving bipedal running at top speed. This species is carnivorous, feeding mainly on insects and smaller lizards. The two genera contain 12 species.

Crotaphytidae

Daniel Schwen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PleurodontaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 11 million years on record.

The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 4.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 18.5 Mya to 210 ka.

Miocene — about 3 of 5 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesPleistocene19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.1–4.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.4–3.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.8–3.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.2–2.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.5–1.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.9–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–633 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences633 ka–0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16.3 Mya4.7 Mya19 Mya0 Mya

5 occurrences of Crotaphytidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

5 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Arikaree — 43.20°N, 108.20°WPanaca — 37.80°N, 114.30°WPalm Springs — 32.97°N, 116.13°W

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The named rock units Crotaphytidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Crotaphytidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Crotaphytidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

100 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Crotaphytidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 5 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Crotaphytidae

Credit
Daniel Schwen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Crotaphytidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPleurodonta through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Frost and Etheridge 1989