Teiinae Estes, de Queiroz, and Gauthier

Harvey, Michael B., Ugueto, Gabriel N. & Gutberlet, Ronald L., 2012, 3459, Zootaxa 3459, pp. 1-156 : 80

Teiinae Estes, de Queiroz, and Gauthier

Teiinae Estes, de Queiroz, and Gauthier 1988: 215 .

Type Genus.— Teius Merrem , designated herein.

Diagnosis.—From the characters we surveyed, the Teiinae are defined by femoral pores continuous with abdominal pores, caudal annuli complete, ventrals in 6–20 longitudinal rows at midbody, postcloacal buttons absent, interangular and intertympanic sulci absent, preaxial and postaxial patches of enlarged brachial scales differentiated, and venter without large melanic blotches. Other defining characters of the subfamily include 25 presacral vertebrae ( Presch 1974a; Veronese & Krause 1997), a single thin pair of infralingual plicae with 0–7 much smaller swollen pairs behind it ( Harris 1985), and 2n = 46–56 chromosomes, with most large chromosomes acrocentric and with no distinct break between macro and microchromosomes ( Gorman 1970). The Teiinae share two apparent synapomorphies of the trigeminal jaw musculature ( Rieppel 1980): (1) a large sheet of temporal fascia arising from the entire temporal arch (postorbital and squamosal; the same fascia is much less extensive in the Tupinambinae , arising only from the dorsolateral edge of the squamosal and the cephalic condyle of the quadrate) and (2) a more lateral (i.e., relative to the Tupinambinae ) position of the vertical sheet of the quadrate aponeurosis. Unlike the Callopistinae and Tupinambinae , the Teiinae share fusion of the postorbital and postfrontal, an expanded pterygoid process of the quadrate, a pterygoid flange, presence of a dorsal squamosal process, an expanded clavicle, presence of clavicular hooks, presence of a scapular fenestra, 12 postxiphisternal ribs, and a low median crest on the caudal vertebrae ( Presch 1974a).

Remarks.— The subfamily names Tupinambinae and Teiinae are attributed to Estes et al. (1988) who elevated Teiini Presch and Tupinambini Presch to subfamilial rank when defining Teiidae . These authors did not designate a type genus of the subfamily. Accordingly, we here designate Teius as the type genus of Teiinae Estes, de Queiroz, and Gauthier. In earlier publications (1983a, b), Estes recognized two subfamilies of Teiidae : Polyglyphanodontinae including several extinct genera and Teiinae including Teiini and Tupinambini sensu Presch (1974a) .