Dibamidae
Family of lizards / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dibamidae or blind skinks is a family of lizards characterized by their elongated cylindrical body and an apparent lack of limbs.[1] Female dibamids are entirely limbless and the males retain small flap-like hind limbs, which they use to grip their partner during mating.[1][2] They have a rigidly fused skull, lack pterygoid teeth and external ears. Their eyes are greatly reduced, and covered with a scale.[2]
Dibamids | |
---|---|
Mexican blind lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Family: | Dibamidae Boulenger, 1884 |
Genera | |
Synonyms | |
Anelytropidae Cope, 1885 |
They are small insectivorous lizards, with long, slender bodies, adapted for burrowing into the soil.[3] They usually lay one egg with a hard, calcified shell, rather than the leathery shells typical of many other reptile groups.[2][4]
The family Dibamidae has two genera, Dibamus with 23 species native to Southeast Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and western New Guinea and the monotypic Anelytropsis native to Mexico.[5] Recent phylogenetic analyses place the dibamids as the sister clade to all the other lizards and snakes[6][7][8] or classify them as sharing a common ancestor with the infraorder Gekkota, with Dibamidae and Gekkota forming the sister clade to all other squamates.[9] Hoeckosaurus from the Oligocene of Mongolia represents the only fossil record of the group.[10]