ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2015
Biogeography of worm lizards (Amphisbaenia) driven by end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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20 citing papers in PubMed.
- First Eocene lizard (Squamata) from Balkanatolia documents overwater dispersal of Paleogene pleurodontan iguanians.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Global evidence of non-pyramidal and uniform ratios of animal diversity across terrestrial trophic levels.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Genomes of the Orestias pupfish from the Andean Altiplano shed light on their evolutionary history and phylogenetic relationships within Cyprinodontiformes.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Article
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- A new four-poredZooKeys · 2024Article
- Evolutionary origins of the prolonged extant squamate radiation.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Intraspecific variation in the cranial osteology of Diplometopon zarudnyi (Squamata: Amphisbaenia: Trogonophidae).Journal of morphology · 2022Article
- The Jurassic rise of squamates as supported by lepidosaur disparity and evolutionary rates.eLife · 2022Article
- Unusual lizard fossil from the Miocene of Nebraska and a minimum age for cnemidophorine teiids.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Asteroid impact, not volcanism, caused the end-Cretaceous dinosaur extinction.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Bite force data suggests relationship between acrodont tooth implantation and strong bite force.PeerJ · 2020Article
- Habitat preference modulates trans-oceanic dispersal in a terrestrial vertebrate.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Pectoral myology of limb-reduced worm lizards (Squamata, Amphisbaenia) suggests decoupling of the musculoskeletal system during the evolution of body elongation.BMC evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- The first Gondwanan borioteiioid lizard and the mid-Cretaceous dispersal event between North America and Africa.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2018Article
- Noise and biases in genomic data may underlie radically different hypotheses for the position of Iguania within Squamata.PloS one · 2018Article
- Global biogeography since Pangaea.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Phylogenomic analyses of Crassiclitellata support major Northern and Southern Hemisphere clades and a Pangaean origin for earthworms.BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- Biotic and environmental dynamics through the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous transition: evidence for protracted faunal and ecological turnover.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2017Article
- Skull osteology of the Eocene amphisbaenian Spathorhynchus fossorium (Reptilia, Squamata) suggests convergent evolution and reversals of fossorial adaptations in worm lizards.Journal of anatomy · 2016Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
Worm lizards (Amphisbaenia) are burrowing squamates that live as subterranean predators. Their underground existence should limit dispersal, yet they are widespread throughout the Americas, Europe and Africa. This pattern was traditionally explained by continental drift, but molecular clocks suggest a Cenozoic diversification, long after the break-up of Pangaea, implying dispersal. Here, we describe primitive amphisbaenians from the North American Palaeocene, including the oldest known amphisbaenian, and provide new and older molecular divergence estimates for the clade, showing that worm lizards originated in North America, then radiated and dispersed in the Palaeogene following the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) extinction. This scenario implies at least three trans-oceanic dispersals: from North America to Europe, from North America to Africa and from Africa to South America. Amphisbaenians provide a striking case study in biogeography, suggesting that the role of continental drift in biogeography may be overstated. Instead, these patterns support Darwin and Wallace's hypothesis that the geographical ranges of modern clades result from dispersal, including oceanic rafting. Mass extinctions may facilitate dispersal events by eliminating competitors and predators that would otherwise hinder establishment of dispersing populations, removing biotic barriers to dispersal.
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