Holbrookia

Holbrookia is a genus of earless lizards, known commonly as the lesser earless lizards, in the family Phrynosomatidae. The genus contains six recognized species, which are found throughout the Southwestern and Central United States and northern Mexico. They are characterized by having no external ear openings, presumably to prevent soil from entering their bodies when they are digging.

Holbrookia

National Park Service · 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
lesser earless lizardPBDB
Sits inside
IguanidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Iguanidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Iguanidae
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 10 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesPleistocene — about 9 of 10 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 occurrences1.9–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–633 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences633 ka–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences16.3 Mya129 ka19 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Holbrookia 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

10 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

5 formations

Alamosa — 37.37°N, 105.75°WRunningwater — 42.37°N, 103.32°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WCrooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°WGood Creek — 34.00°N, 99.80°W

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The named rock units Holbrookia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Holbrookia and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Holbrookia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

201 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Holbrookia, 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

7 references

Each of the 10 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 content1

Picture of Holbrookia

Credit
National Park Service
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Holbrookia 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 itIguanidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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