The desert plated lizard (''Gerrhosaurus skoogi'') is a reptile

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 appropriate s ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the northern Namib Desert in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

and

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

. Also known as the sand plated lizard,
Lamb T, Meeker AM, :fr:Aaron Matthew Bauer, Bauer AM, Branch WR (2003). "On the systematic status of the desert plated lizard (''Angolosaurus skoogi'' ): phylogenetic inference from DNA sequence analysis of the African Gerrhosauridae". ''Biological Journal of the Linnean Society'' 78 (2): 253-261. it is diurnal.

Etymology

The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, ''skoogi'', is in honor of Hilmer Nils Erik Skoog (1870–1927), who was Curator of the '' Götesborgs Naturhistoriska museum'' from 1904 to 1927.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Gerrhosaurus skoogi'', p. 245).

Taxonomy

In 1916

Andersson Andersson (previously Andjersson) is a Swedish language surname, a form of the surname Anderson. ''Andersson'' is, if several spelling variants are included, the most common surname in Sweden.FitzSimons Fitzsimons (also spelled FitzSimons, Fitzsimmons or FitzSimmons) is a surname of Norman origin common in both Ireland and England. The name is a variant of "Sigmundsson", meaning son of Sigmund. The Gaelicisation of this surname is Mac Shíomóin. ...

assigned the species to a new genus ''Angolosaurus''. Recent studies suggest that this

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

is synonymous to '' Gerrhosaurus'' and makes it

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

; therefore ''A. skoogi'' was reclassified as ''Gerrhosaurus skoogi''.

Etymology

Taxonomy

References

Further reading