The Cenozoic lizard record of the Pampean Region

The Pampean Region is a geographic area involving central and eastern Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil. Contrasting with the fauna of squamates that currently inhabits the Pampean ­Region, the paleontological record is extremely reduced. Teiidae is the best-represented lizard taxon, with its earliest record in the late Miocene. Iguania is present since the early Pliocene onwards, whereas Anguidae is known only in the middle Pleistocene and Phyllodactylidae in the late Pleistocene-early Holocene interval. Other living families present in the region (Gymnophtalmidae, Scincidae) have no fossil representatives. The unique extinct taxon is the teiid Callopistes bicuspidatus Chani, 1976. The fossil record includes some taxa presently absent in the paleontological sites; this implies that the Neogene and Quaternary climatic-environmental changes that affected dramatically the avian and mammalian faunas of the Pampean Region, also influenced the biogeographical history of the herpetofauna.