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 2 n = 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 2 n = 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 2 n = 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 2 n = 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., Published as part of Castiglia, Riccardo, Annesi, Flavia, Bezerra, Alexandra M. R., García, Andrés & Flores-Villela, Oscar, 2010, 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, pp. 1-29 in Zootaxa 2508 on page 18, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.196005, {"references":["Schmitz, A., Mausfeld, P. & Embert, D. (2004) Molecular studies on the genus Eumeces Wiegmann, 1834: phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic implications. Hamadryad, 28, 73 - 89.","Smith, H. M. (2005) Plestiodon: a replacement name for most members of the genus Eumeces in North America. Journal of Kansas Herpetology, 14, 15 - 16.","Deweese, J. E. & Wright, J. W. (1970) A preliminary karyological analysis of scincid lizards. 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