Abstract
The earliest world record of the green lizards, Lacerta viridis group, is described from the lower Miocene of Central Europe. The fossils come from greenish, calcareous marls and limnic clayey silts of the Ottnangian zone MN 4 of the Dolnice locality near Cheb in the Czech Republic. Sediments are interpreted as marginal, riparian facies. The material consists of isolated frontal bones of two different ontogenetic stages and one isolated fragment of parietal. Their morphology is identical to that of the extant members of the L. viridis group. However, the fossil material is much older than the previously described specimens of green lizards. Therefore, this finding extends our knowledge about the evolution and stratigraphic range of the group and about composition of the early Miocene herpetofauna in central Europe.
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