Cytotaxonomy and DNA taxonomy of lizards (Squamata, Sauria) from a tropical dry forest in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the coast of Jalisco, Mexico Author Castiglia, Riccardo Author Annesi, Flavia Author Bezerra, Alexandra M. R. Author García, Andrés Author Flores-Villela, Oscar text Zootaxa 2010 2508 1 29 journal article 10.5281/zenodo.196005 4a013300-d475-4db9-a5cf-bff30510ac4a 1175-5326 196005 Plestiodon Duméril and Bibron The genus Eumeces has been recently split into four genera, namely Pariocela , Eumeces , Eurylepis , and Mesoscincus ( Schmitz et al. 2004 ) . Because of priority reasons, the name Plestiodon has been adopted instead of Pariocela for those American species formerly referred to as Eumeces , except for those placed in Mesoscincus ( Smith 2005 ) . The differences among the groups were based in part on analyses of chromosomes numbers. A large number of studies showed that all species of the American Plestiodon have 2n = 26 chromosomes ( Deweese & Wright 1970 ; Wu 1983 ; Capriglione 1987 ; Guo & Dong, 1988 ; Kato et al. 1998 ), while all the African species of the genus Eumeces are unique in having a constant 2n = 32 chromosomes ( Gorman 1973 ; Kupriyanova 1973 ; De Smet 1981 ; Kupriyanova 1986 ; Eremchenko et al. 1992 ; Caputo et al. 1993 , 1994 ; Hassan 1996 ). The Eurylepis taeniolatus group can be also differentiated from other groups by uniquely having 2n = 28 chromosomes ( Ivanov & Bogdanov 1975 ; Kupriyanova 1986 ; Eremchenko et al. 1992 ). Molecular phylogenetic analysis by Schmitz et al. (2004) , which included American species, identified four species groups in Plestiodon : a group comprised of P. anthracinus , P. egregius and, surprisingly, Neoseps reynoldsi ; a “ laticeps ” species-group including laticeps , inexpectatus , fasciatus , obsoletus , septentrionalis and obstusirostris ; a “ skiltonianus ” species-group with skiltonianus , gilberti and rubricaudatus ; a clade composed of the two Mexican species P. brevirostris and P. l y n x e . Following the recent systematic revision of the genus, Plestiodon “ sensu stricto ” contains 41 species. Ten species have been karyotyped and all showed 2n = 26 (12 macro- and 14 microchromosomes) ( Caputo et al. 1994 ). The karyotypes differ in the morphology of microchromosomes, however, this can be partly due to the interpretation of smaller chromosomes by different authors.