Iguania

Common card · No. 226591

Iguania is a suborder of squamate reptiles that includes iguanas, chameleons, agamids, and New World lizards. Using morphological features as a guide to evolutionary relationships, the Iguania are believed to form the sister group to the Squamata, which comprise nearly 11,000 named species, roughly 2000 of which are iguanians. However, molecular information has placed Iguania well within the Squamata as sister taxa to the Anguimorpha and closely related to snakes. The order has been under debate and revisions after being classified by Charles Lewis Camp in 1923 due to difficulties finding adequate synapomorphic morphological characteristics. Most iguanians are arboreal but there are several terrestrial groups. They usually have primitive fleshy, non-prehensile tongues, although the tongue is highly modified in chameleons. Today they are scattered occurring in Madagascar, the Fiji and Friendly Islands and Western Hemisphere.

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