Cnemidophorus lemniscatus
(Linnaeus, 1758)
SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
Native to Guatemala south to Argentina. It was introduced via the pet trade during the 1960s in Hialeah, Miami-Dade County, Florida but these individuals did not establish (King and Krakauer, 1966, Quarterly Journal of the Florida Academy of Sciences 29: 144–154; Wilson and Porras, 1983, The Ecological Impact of Man on the South Florida Herpetofauna. University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Special Publication 9: i–vi + 1–89). It has since established at other localities in northern Miami-Dade County (Bartlett, 1995, U.S. Tropical Fish Hobbyist 43: 112, 114–119, 121–122, 124–126; Punzo, 2001, Herpetological Review 32: 85–87; Meshaka et al., 2004, The Exotic Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. Krieger Publishing Company, Malabar, Florida; Enge and Krysko, 2019, Cnemidophorus lemniscatus. Pages 432–433 in Krysko et al. (Editors) Amphibians and Reptiles of Florida. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida). Several species, both uni- and bisexual, have been described for different parts of the taxon that was formerly known as C. lemniscatus (King and Krakauer, 1966, Quarterly Journal of the Florida Academy of Sciences 29: 144–154; Cole and Dessauer, 1993, American Museum Novitates. 3081: 1–30; Markezich et al., 1997, American Museum Novitates. 3207: 1–60). This introduced population is bisexual but has not yet been associated with one or more of those species.
Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.08.12.31.18)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.01 MB
Province/State Distribution:
USA: Florida
First instance(s) of published English names:
No historic English names have been assigned to this taxon yet.
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
The Reptile Database
GenBank
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database
Selected References:
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1758
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Linné, Carl von (=Linneaus). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. [System of Nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera, species with characters, differences, synonyms, places.] 10th Edition, Volume 1, L. Salvius, Stockholm. iv + 826pp.
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1966
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King, F. Wayne and Thomas Krakauer. The exotic herpetofauna of southeast Florida. Quarterly Journal of the Florida Academy of Sciences 29(2):144–154
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1993
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Cole, Charles J. and Herbert C. Dessauer. Unisexual and bisexual whiptail lizards of the Cnemidophorus lemniscatus complex (Squamata: Teiidae) of the Guiana Region, South America, with descriptions of new species. American Museum Novitates (3081):1-30
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1997
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Markezich, Allan L., Charles J. Cole, and Herbert C. Dessauer. The blue and green whiptail lizards (Squamata: Teiidae: Cnemidophorus) of the Peninsula de Paraguana, Venezuela: Systematics, ecology, descriptions of two new taxa, and relationships to whiptails of the Guianas. American Museum Novitates (3207):1-60
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