Abstract

Alopoglossidae is a family of Neotropical lizards composed of 23 species allocated in two genera (Alopoglossus and Ptychoglossus). There is a lack of knowledge about the phylogenetic relationships and systematics of this family. Published phylogenies that include alopoglossid species have very low taxon coverage within the family, and are usually based on limited character sampling. Considering these limitations, we inferred the phylogenetic relationships of Alopoglossidae—including all but one species in the family—based on the combined analyses of DNA sequences and morphological characters. We used four loci (the mitochondrial 12S, 16S and ND4; the nuclear C-mos) and a matrix of 143 phenotypic characters from scutellation, tongue morphology, hemipenis morphology, and osteology. The dataset was analyzed with Maximum Parsimony, with four alternative weighting schemes: three under Extended Implied Weighting, and one with equal weighting. The respective resulting topologies were compared in a sensitivity analysis framework. Our analyses strongly support the paraphyly of Ptychoglossus, with Alopoglossus nested within it. We provide an updated classification for the subfamily, where Ptychoglossus Boulenger, 1890 is considered a junior synonym of Alopoglossus Boulenger, 1885.