Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What's known about their evolutionary history? Or at least about the local environmental changes that preceeded early fossil evidence of them? Were they a desert lizard that adapted to survive in milder fringe climes? Or a temperate field lizard that learned to aggressively use rock piles for maximum heat? I know this wouldn't be a topic that there are huge government grants going to, but is there anything about the subject that we actually do know?
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0.1 2006 Western Hognose (Bebe)
0.1 age unknown Cane Toad (Hengo)
0.1 2005 White-Banded Sheen Skink (Minerva)
1.0 2006 Northern Diamondback Terrapin (Queequeg)
1.0 2006 Madagascan Speckled "Hognose" (Sigmund)
1.0 2008 Bullsnake (Winkle)
1.2 2008 Eastern Collared Lizards (Pancho, Lupe, and Chica)
0.0.2 2009 Eastern Collared hatchlings

You would have to do some research on the evolution. You may want to start with some of the studies done by James Mcquire over the years.

** But you also asked even now adays as far as habitat/locales.

Here is a study that has gone on in Mousouri that is quite interesting. I thank the authors for the article below.
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Collared lizards are generally thought of as southwestern lizards. However, approximately 8,000 years ago, hotter and drier climate allowed collared lizards to migrate into Missouri. About 3,000 years ago, the climate became wetter and cooler, as it is today, and most areas became unsuitable to collared lizards. However, habitats called "glades" occur on rocky, poor soils where forest generally does not become established. Glades with a southwestern exposure tend to be hot enough and open enough for collared lizard populations to persist. Unfortunately, many glades and their occupants are threatened by fire suppression, which allows the eastern cedar to become established. Once a canopy develops, other trees can come in, and many glade inhabitants, such as collared lizards, disappear.
Most glades today are small and isolated. As such, they are in jeopardy due to stochastic and genetic factors. Because small, peripherally-located, populations are of interest both to evolutionary and conservation biologists, we have established long-term studies on several glades within two hours' drive from campus. One glade has been studied since 1993; seven others since 1995 or 1996. On each glade, each lizard is individually identified. Because collared lizards rarely live more than four years in Missouri, we now know the life history of each lizard on the glade--when it was born, where it lived, who it's range overlapped with. Our goals are to understand change in population dynamics and genetic constitution as a consequence of individual histories. The development of microsatellite loci hopefully will allow us to establish parentage and thus permit tracing change in genetic variation as the result of the reproductive success (or lack thereof) of particular individuals. Delbert Hutchison has taken the lead in much of this work in recent years and all of the molecular work, conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Alan Templeton. John Parks has also been responsible for much of the work on many of the glades. Danielle Glossip, in her time both as an undergraduate and as a technician, was instrumental in getting these studies going.

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PHEve / Eve

That helpful, actually. Histories of environments have a lot to tell us about the species that live in them.
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0.1 2006 Western Hognose (Bebe)
0.1 age unknown Cane Toad (Hengo)
0.1 2005 White-Banded Sheen Skink (Minerva)
1.0 2006 Northern Diamondback Terrapin (Queequeg)
1.0 2006 Madagascan Speckled "Hognose" (Sigmund)
1.0 2008 Bullsnake (Winkle)
1.2 2008 Eastern Collared Lizards (Pancho, Lupe, and Chica)
0.0.2 2009 Eastern Collared hatchlings

>>Here is a study that has gone on in Mousouri that is quite interesting. I thank the authors for the article below.

Do you have a citation for this information?

There is apparently a lot of interesting things happening in Missouri as pertains to collareds...reintroduction into historical habitat as well as man-made habitat.
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet