Elgaria

Elgaria is a genus of New World lizards in the family Anguidae. Their common name is western alligator lizards. There are seven species in the genus.

Elgaria

No machine-readable author provided. Splarka assumed (based on copyright claims). · Public Domain · 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
alligator lizardPBDB
Sits inside
AnguidaePBDB
Diet
insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Anguidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 18.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPleistocene — about 5 of 6 occurrencesPleistocene19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.2–2.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.5–1.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.9–1.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.3–633 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences633 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences16.3 Mya129 ka19 Mya0 Mya

6 occurrences of Elgaria 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

6 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

1 formation

Arikaree — 43.20°N, 108.20°W

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The named rock units Elgaria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Elgaria and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Elgaria and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

190 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Elgaria, 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

6 references

Each of the 6 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Elgaria

Credit
No machine-readable author provided. Splarka assumed (based on copyright claims).
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Elgaria multicarinata · L-RED:EM40

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 itAnguidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1838