TY - JOUR
T1 - A giant armoured skink from Australia expands lizard morphospace and the scope of the Pleistocene extinctions
AU - Thorn, Kailah M.
AU - Fusco, Diana A.
AU - Hutchinson, Mark N.
AU - Gardner, Michael G.
AU - Clayton, Jessica L.
AU - Prideaux, Gavin J.
AU - Lee, Michael S. Y.
PY - 2023/6/14
Y1 - 2023/6/14
N2 - There are more species of lizards and snakes (squamates) alive today than any other order of land vertebrates, yet their fossil record has been poorly documented compared with other groups. Here, we describe a gigantic Pleistocene skink from Australia based on extensive material that includes much of the skull and postcranial skeleton, and spans ontogenetic stages from neonate to adult. Tiliqua frangens substantially expands the known ecomorphological diversity of squamates. At approximately 2.4 kg, it was more than double the mass of any living skink, with an exceptionally broad, deep skull, squat limbs and heavy, ornamented body armour. It probably filled the armoured herbivore niche that land tortoises (testudinids), absent from Australia, occupy on other continents. Tiliqua frangens and other giant Plio-Pleistocene skinks suggest that small-bodied groups that dominate vertebrate biodiversity might have lost their largest and often most morphologically extreme representatives in the Late Pleistocene, expanding the scope of these extinctions.
AB - There are more species of lizards and snakes (squamates) alive today than any other order of land vertebrates, yet their fossil record has been poorly documented compared with other groups. Here, we describe a gigantic Pleistocene skink from Australia based on extensive material that includes much of the skull and postcranial skeleton, and spans ontogenetic stages from neonate to adult. Tiliqua frangens substantially expands the known ecomorphological diversity of squamates. At approximately 2.4 kg, it was more than double the mass of any living skink, with an exceptionally broad, deep skull, squat limbs and heavy, ornamented body armour. It probably filled the armoured herbivore niche that land tortoises (testudinids), absent from Australia, occupy on other continents. Tiliqua frangens and other giant Plio-Pleistocene skinks suggest that small-bodied groups that dominate vertebrate biodiversity might have lost their largest and often most morphologically extreme representatives in the Late Pleistocene, expanding the scope of these extinctions.
KW - Australia
KW - extinction
KW - megafauna
KW - Pleistocene
KW - reptile
KW - Tiliqua
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85161832532&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/DP150100264
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/ARC/DP200102880
U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2023.0704
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2023.0704
M3 - Article
C2 - 37312544
AN - SCOPUS:85161832532
SN - 0962-8452
VL - 290
JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
IS - 2000
M1 - 20230704
ER -