Anolis angusticeps, Hallowell, 1856

Nicholson, Kirsten E., Crother, Brian I., Guyer, Craig & Savage, Jay M., 2012, 3477, Zootaxa 3477, pp. 1-108 : 36

Anolis angusticeps Species Group

Diagnosis. — Support for this group is provided by 56 apomorphies including zero morphological and 56 molecular ones. Twenty of the latter are unequivocal (see Appendix II).

Definition. — Lizards of this species group are small anoles (maximum snout-to-vent length in adult males 41 to 53 mm and 40 to 47 mm in adult females) sharing the following combination of characters: 1) no transparent scales in lower eyelid; 2) interparietal scale small, about same size as adjacent scales; 3) head elongate, length much longer than width; 4) arms and legs short; 5) tail short, about 2.0 times snout-to-vent length; 6) dewlap present or absent in females; 7) five or six lumbar vertebrae; 8) seven aseptate caudal vertebrae anterior to first autotomic vertebra.

Content. — This species group contains seven species and a total of nine species and subspecies (see Appendix III).

Distribution. — Cuba, its satellite islands, Hispaniola, and the Bahamas ( Fig. 21).

Remarks. — A pair of sister species, Anolis garridoi and A. guazuma , form a basal branch to the loysianus group in the molecular tree and have a similar relationship to the angusticeps group in the combined tree. Rodriguez-Schettino (1999) groups these taxa with other narrow-headed forms in her carolinensis species group. Members of the loysianus species group, in contrast, have shorter and broader heads. One solution to the incongruence between the trees would be to place the two species at issue into a separate species group but we are influenced by Rodriguez-Schettino’s treatment and include them in the angusticeps group pending further study.