Mabuya

Mabuya is a genus of long-tailed skinks, lizards in the family Scincidae. The genus is restricted to species from various Caribbean islands. Out of 26 recognized species, six species are only found in Caribbean islands. Species in the genus Mabuya are primarily carnivorous, though many are omnivorous. The genus is viviparous, having a highly evolved placenta that resembles that of eutherian mammals. Formerly, many Old World species were placed here, as Mabuya was a kind of "wastebasket taxon". These Old World species are now placed in the genera Chioninia, Eutropis, and Trachylepis. Under the older classification, the New World species were referred to as "American mabuyas", and as of 2024 include the genera Alinea, Aspronema, Brasiliscincus, Capitellum, Copeoglossum, Maracaiba, Marisora, and Varzea.

Mabuya

Mark Stevens from Warrington, UK · CC BY 2.0 · 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
LygosominaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Scincidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Scincidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesHolocene — about 2 of 2 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Mabuya on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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

2 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.

Mabuya and its relatives

Holocene

Where Mabuya and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

17 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Mabuya, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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 2 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 Mabuya

Credit
Mark Stevens from Warrington, UK
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mabuya 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 itLygosominae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fitzinger 1826