May 8, 2013 — A George Washington University biologist and a team of researchers have created the first large-scale evolutionary family tree for every snake and lizard around the globe.
The findings were recently published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. Alex Pyron, the Robert F. Griggs Assistant Professor of Biology in GW's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, along with researchers from the City University of New York and Arizona State University, detail the cataloging of 4,161 species of snakes and lizards, or squamates.
"Squamates include all lizards and snakes found throughout the globe, including around 9,500 species on every continent except Antarctica, and found in most oceans," said Dr. Pyron. "This is everything from cobras to garter snakes to tiny geckos to the Komodo Dragon to the Gila Monster. They range from tiny threadsnakes that can curl up on a dime to 10 feet monitor lizards and 30 foot pythons. They eat everything from ants to wildebeest."
The evolutionary family tree, or phylogeny, includes all families and subfamilies and most genus and species groups, said Dr. Pyron. While there are gaps on some branches of the tree, the structure of the tree goes a long way toward fully mapping every genus and species group.
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