Iguania
| Iguania Temporal range: Early Jurassic - present, 190–0 Ma |
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| Leiocephalus personatus, a species of iguanian | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Clade: | Iguanomorpha |
| Suborder: | Iguania |
| Families | |
Agamidae
Chamaeleonidae
Iguanidae
The Iguania are a suborder of the Squamata (snakes and lizards) that contains the iguanas, chameleons, agamids, and New World lizards, such as anoles and phrynosomatids. Using morphological features as a guide to evolutionary relationships, the Iguania are believed to form the sister group to the remainder of the Squamata. However, molecular information has placed Iguania well within the Squamata as sister taxa to the Anguimorpha and closely related to snakes. Iguanians are largely arboreal and have primitively fleshy, nonprehensile tongues, although the condition is highly modified in chameleons. The group has a fossil record that extends back to the Early Jurassic (the oldest known member is Bharatagama, which lived about 190 million years ago in what is now India).
The Iguania currently include these extant families:
Below is a cladogram from the phylogenetic analysis of Daza et al. (2012) (a morphological analysis), showing the interrelationships of extinct and living iguanians:
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