Lacertidae

The Lacertidae are the family of the wall lizards, true lizards, or sometimes simply lacertas, which are native to Afro-Eurasia. It is a diverse family with at about 360 species in 39 genera. They represent the dominant group of reptiles found in Europe.

Lacertidae

Stanislaw Szydlo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
LacertoideaPBDB
Diet
insectivore, carnivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 132.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 499 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 499 occurrencesPaleocene — about 8 of 499 occurrencesEocene — about 57 of 499 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 76 of 499 occurrencesMiocene — about 146 of 499 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 52 of 499 occurrencesPleistocene — about 142 of 499 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences122–117 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences63–59 Mya — about 3 occurrences59–54 Mya — about 9 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 9 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 4 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences41–36 Mya — about 20 occurrences36–32 Mya — about 28 occurrences32–27 Mya — about 21 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 47 occurrences23–18 Mya — about 18 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 52 occurrences14–9.0 Mya — about 33 occurrences9.0–4.5 Mya — about 55 occurrences4.5–0 Mya — about 197 occurrences121.4 Mya11.7 ka135 Mya0 Mya

499 occurrences of Lacertidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

499 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

44 formations

Upper Freshwater Molasse — 48.44°N, 11.04°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.66°N, 10.23°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.63°N, 11.80°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.09°N, 10.03°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.17°N, 10.10°EHsanda Gol — 45.45°N, 101.27°EHsanda Gol — 45.30°N, 102.08°EHsanda Gol — 45.29°N, 101.63°EHsanda Gol — 45.26°N, 101.72°EQuercy Phosphorites — 44.27°N, 1.63°EPerrière — 44.37°N, 1.73°EPerrière — 44.38°N, 1.43°Efacies à Congeria — 45.05°N, 7.93°ESpilia — 41.15°N, 23.48°ECollegats — 42.25°N, 1.08°ETienen — 50.82°N, 5.10°ELaa — 48.37°N, 16.35°ELefkon — 41.17°N, 23.50°ELefkon — 40.78°N, 24.03°EVille — 50.90°N, 6.45°ELoh — 45.38°N, 101.51°ELoh — 45.54°N, 101.14°ECórcoles — 40.47°N, 2.68°WPerriere — 44.35°N, 1.73°EPerriere — 44.37°N, 1.73°EArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°EJibou — 47.26°N, 23.26°EWiesbaden — 50.04°N, 8.27°ESajovolgyi — 47.97°N, 19.69°EConglomérat de Cernay — 49.27°N, 4.10°ELignites de Soissonais — 49.08°N, 4.03°ELignites de Soissonais — 49.05°N, 4.00°EMazaterón — 41.53°N, 2.12°WColombacci — 44.22°N, 11.77°EKomnina — 40.43°N, 21.80°ELignite-Sandstone — 40.92°N, 26.81°ELignite-Sandstone — 41.00°N, 26.82°E

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The named rock units Lacertidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 20 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 377 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lacertidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Lacertidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,739 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 319 sites for Lacertidae, and this reads 240 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

166 references

Each of the 499 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. 154 further references are not listed. 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 Lacertidae

Credit
Stanislaw Szydlo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itLacertoidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1831