Sociality in Lizards

Lizards, snakes and amphisbaenians (worm lizards) form a monophyletic group (the squamate reptiles), which contains 9,712 species (Uetz & Hošek, 2015) in 61 families (Wiens, et al., 2012). New species are constantly being described, particularly with the advent of modern molecular systematics and improved access to remote regions. Consequently, this group is likely to be considerably larger in the future (Pyron, et al., 2013). Not only is this a taxonomically diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates, but species occupy a wide range of habitats and ecosystems, and occur on all continents except Antarctica. Furthermore, they span a wide range of body sizes and forms from miniature chameleons and geckos that perch comfortably on a matchstick, to reticulated pythons in excess of 6 m in length. While snakes have traditionally been viewed as a group separate from lizards (e.g. different suborders in traditional taxonomic terms), they are in fact embedded within lizards such that some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards (Wiens, et al., 2012; Pyron, et al., 2013).