Foreword

The Liolaeminae (Iguania: Tropiduridae) is a large clade of small to moderate-sized lizards that live in primarily arid and semiarid habitats throughout most of austral South America. They are a conspicuous component of the terrestrial vertebrate fauna wherever they occur, and many localities are occupied by several species. As this bibliography clearly indicates, lizards of the Liolaeminae have been the focus of intense interest by biologists for more than a century.

In 1989, Frost and Etheridge proposed formal recognition of Liolaeminae as a subfamily of the iguanian family Tropiduridae. Although species of Liolaeminae have been coupled with a large number of generic names (see Taxonomy), Etheridge (1995) recognized only three as valid: Ctenoblepharys (1 species), Phymaturus (10 species) and Liolaemus (~ 150 species). Ctenoblepharys adspersa is an arenicolous insectivore confined to the Pacific beaches of central Perú, where it occurs in isolation from other Liolaeminae. Phymaturus are saxicolous, herbivorous lizards that live at high elevations in the Andes of central Chile and Argentina, and along the volcanic mesetas in central and southern Argentina. Throughout its range Phymaturus occurs sympatrically with one or more species of Liolaemus. The number of valid species of Liolaemus as of this writing stands at approximately 150—the uncertainty resulting from differing opinions on the validity of some forms. Eleven species have from two to five subspecies. The number of Liolaemus has been growing at a rate of about four new species each year for the past decade (Fig. 1), and at least 20 manuscript names known to us are now in preparation.

Fig. 1. Number of Liolaemus taxa described over time. Only taxa that are currently considered valid are listed (see list at end of the bibliography). Incredibly, the rate of new-species descriptions has averaged 2.7 per year since 1970 and has risen to 3.5 per year within the last decade.

Liolaemus ranges from northern central Perú southward through Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina to northern Tierra del Fuego, and up the Atlantic coast of Uruguay and southeastern Brazil. Members of this genus occur at elevations from sea level to over 5000 m. In body size they range from 45 to just over 100 mm snout-vent length, with body masses from three to nearly 200 g. Liolaemus may be insectivorous or herbivorous, but the majority of species appear to be omnivores. The reproductive mode of Ctenoblepharys is unknown, but it is probably oviparous. Phymaturus are viviparous, as are about half the species of Liolaemus, whereas the remaining species deposit eggs in varying stages of embryonic development. The majority of liolaemine lizards live in arid or semiarid habitats, but the distributions of some Liolaemus extend into the humid forest of southern Chile, and along the Atlantic coast including several Brazilian islands. Liolaeminae are almost entirely terrestrial, with most being microhabitat generalists, but some are highly specialized morphologically: Ctenoblepharys adspersa and some Liolaemus for life on aeolian sand, and Phymaturus and some Liolaemus for life among the crevices in outcrops of boulders. Only one species of Liolaemus is commonly found on trees.

Clearly the large number of species, the great range in latitude and elevation, the occurrence of multiple syntopic species in many regions, and the great diversity in characteristics such as body size, morphology, diet, reproductive mode, and microhabitat selection insures that these lizards will be the subjects of biological investigations for many years to come. Our purpose in preparing this bibliography and lists of valid names and synonymies is to help facilitate those studies.

Content & How to Use This Bibliography

The bibliography contains references written in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, and Spanish, and spans about three centuries of research. We made every effort to locate the original work for each citation in an attempt to avoid the errors associated with copying bibliographies from secondary sources. We also attempted to include the full citations for the references rather than to use abbreviations; however, in a few cases we were unable to locate the primary reference and thus had to rely on citations from other resources. Originally, this bibliography included 43 secondary references in which only earlier works were cited, and 114 citations of published abstracts of papers given at meetings. Because of page limitations, these citations have been removed. Despite our attempts to make this bibliography as error-free and comprehensive as possible, undoubtedly we have made mistakes and missed some citations. With the help of our colleagues we hope that we can remedy this shortfall and keep the list up to date by receiving notices or reprints of work relating to this fascinating group of lizards.

The references are ordered alphabetically, by the last name of the first author, and next by the year the paper was published. In cases of multiple authorship, the same principle above follows, with the citations listed by the second author’s last name and so forth. Because publication dates are sometimes not the same as print dates, some citations are followed by a year in brackets (e.g., [1991]). In such instances, the year for the reference should be cited (or searched for) using the publication date not the bracketed print date.

A “t.d.” before a species name in an annotation indicates that the reference is the source of the original type description for a given taxon. The spelling of taxa in annotations follows the orthography of the publications cited and no assumptions were made regarding the current identity of these taxa. Users should refer to the Taxonomy section at the end of the bibliography for synonomys and current useage. Annotations are lacking for many shorter publications for which the contents are explicitly stated in the title.

We are aware that the utility of this bibliography would be greatly enhanced by the addition of one or more indexes. We hope that future editions may include indexes, and encourage those who are interested in particular aspects of liolaemine biology (e.g., behavior, life history, taxonomy, etc.) to prepare indexes for their topics of interest and share them with our fellow researchers. We encourage the users of this bibliography and taxonomy to send additions and corrections to the senior author at rether@sunstroke.sdsu.edu.

Acknowledgments

Many of our colleagues and friends assisted by sending their references or reprints and, were it not for their efforts, assembling this bibliography would have been much more difficult. Among them, we would like to thank Luciano Avila, Dan Blackburn, Félix Cruz, Kevin de Queiroz, Lee Fitzgerald, Lígia Krause, Fernando Lobo, Ricardo Montero, Jimmy McGuire, Scott Moody, Herman Núñez, Martha Ramírez Pinilla, Fred Rocha, Miguel Rodriguez, Kurt Schwenk, Norm Scott, Laura Vega, Van Wallach, and Jorge Williams. We would like to extend a special thanks to Jorge Williams who allowed us to incorporate numerous citations from a similar bibliography that he was preparing. We thank Heather Powell and the librarians directing the interlibrary loan services at San Diego State University and at the University of Nevada, Reno for helping us to procure some of the more difficult-to-obtain references. Carrie Carreño, Fernando Lobo, and Heather Powell helped to check earlier versions of the bibliography for errors. During the preparation of this bibliography, the junior author was supported by a Porter Fellowship from the American Society of Physiologists and the Biological Resources Research Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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