Lepidophyma

Lepidophyma is a genus of lizards, commonly called tropical night lizards. The genus Lepidophyma is one of three genera of night lizards, which are a group of viviparous (live-bearing) lizards. There are 20 species of tropical night lizards in the genus Lepidophyma, making it the most populous night lizard genus. Species of the genus Lepidophyma are distributed throughout Central America, found anywhere from central Mexico to Panama, depending on the particular species. Tropical night lizards, particularly the yellow-spotted species, are sometimes called Central American bark lizards by pet dealers and owners.

Lepidophyma

ManakusCR · 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
Also called
tropical night lizardPBDB
Sits inside
XantusiidaePBDB
Diet
insectivore, herbivorePBDB, for Xantusiidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Xantusiidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Lepidophyma on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

1 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.

Lepidophyma and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Lepidophyma and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

33 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Lepidophyma, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Lepidophyma

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

No 3D scan of Lepidophyma was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itXantusiidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Duméril 1851