''Acanthodactylus'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

lacertid The Lacertidae are the family of the wall lizards, true lizards, or sometimes simply lacertas, which are native to Afro-Eurasia. It is a diverse family with at least 300 species in 39 genera. They represent the dominant group of reptiles found ...

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia altho ...

s, commonly referred to as fringe-fingered lizards, fringe-toed lizards (though the latter common name is also used for the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

lizard genus ''

Uma Parvati ( sa, पार्वती, ), Uma ( sa, उमा, ) or Gauri ( sa, गौरी, ) is the Hindu goddess of power, energy, nourishment, harmony, love, beauty, devotion, and motherhood. She is a physical representation of Mahadevi in ...

''), and spiny-toed lizards.

Geographic range

The approximately 40

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

in the genus ''Acanthodactylus'' are native to a wide area in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, southern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes A ...

; across the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

, to the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...

, and east through the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

, to

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

and western

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. Salvador A (1982)
"A revision of the lizards of the genus ''Acanthodactylus'' (Sauria: Lacertidae)".
''Bonn. Zool. Monogr.'' (16): 1–167.

Habitat

Though lizards of the genus ''Acanthodactylus'' prefer dry and sparsely vegetated regions, they are not strictly tied to an

arid A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most ...

terrain; so it is not uncommon to come across them in various environments.

Description

Members of the genus ''Acanthodactylus'' possess the following combination of traits: *Lacking

occipital scales In reptiles, occipital scales are enlarged plates that lie directly behind the parietal scales.Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G. 2003. True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 p ...

, *Flat

ventral scales In snakes, the ventral scales or gastrosteges are the enlarged and transversely elongated scales that extend down the underside of the body from the neck to the anal scale. When counting them, the first is the anteriormost ventral scale that cont ...

, *Fingers with three or four series of scales, *Toes with comb-like projections, * Femoral pores present, * Parietal foramen present. The coloration and pattern of spots of ''Acanthodactylus'' is extremely variable, so it is unsurprising that zoologists have, at one time or another, classified every variety as a separate species.

Behavior

Every saurian of the genus ''Acanthodactylus'' is very aggressive and gets continuously involved in skirmishes with other members of its species. The

male Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...

s strenuously defend the borders of their

territories A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

Reproduction

''Acanthodactylus'' are

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and m ...

. The number of eggs in a clutch ranges from 3 to 7. The total length of a sexually mature adult of the genus is, on average, .

Classification

Genus ''Acanthodactylus'' ''

Nota bene (, or ; plural form ) is a Latin phrase meaning "note well". It is often abbreviated as NB, n.b., or with the ligature and first appeared in English writing . In Modern English, it is used, particularly in legal papers, to draw the atte ...

'': A

binomial authority In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bo ...

in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than ''Acanthodactylus''.

References

External links

''Acanthodactylus'': Fringe-Fingered Lizards
{{Taxonbar, from=Q481678 Desert fauna Lizard genera Taxa named by Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann