Identification of Late Pleistocene and Holocene fossil lizards from Hall's Cave (Kerr County, Texas) and a primer on morphological variation in North American lizard skulls.

ABSTRACT: Fossil identification practices have a profound effect on our interpretation of the past because these identifications form the basis for downstream analyses. Therefore, well-supported fossil identifications are necessary for examining the impact of past environmental changes on populations and communities. Here we apply an apomorphic identification framework in a case study identifying fossil lizard remains from Hall's Cave, a late Quaternary fossil site located in Central Texas, USA. We present images and descriptions of a broad comparative sample of North American lizard cranial elements and compile new and previously reported apomorphic characters for identifying fossil lizards. Our fossil identifications from Hall's Cave resulted in a minimum of 11 lizard taxa, including five lizard t

SUBMITTER: Ledesma DT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11326655 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature