17-550: The Tropidophiidae , common name dwarf boas or thunder snakes , are a family of nonvenomous snakes found from Mexico and the West Indies south to southeastern Brazil . These are small to medium-sized fossorial snakes, some with beautiful and striking color patterns. Currently, two living genera , containing 34 species , are recognized. Two other genera ( Ungaliophis and Exiliboa ) were once considered to be tropidophiids but are now known to be more closely related to
34-513: A defense tactic. They are found from southern Mexico and Central America , south to northwestern South America in Colombia , (Amazonian) Ecuador , and Peru , as well as in northwestern and southeastern Brazil , and also in the West Indies . Fossils of 10 extinct species in five genera from the Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene of Europe, Africa, and North and South America have been assigned to
51-554: A lack of widespread consensus within the scientific community for extended periods. The continual publication of new data and diverse opinions plays a crucial role in facilitating adjustments and ultimately reaching a consensus over time. The naming of families is codified by various international bodies using the following suffixes: The taxonomic term familia was first used by French botanist Pierre Magnol in his Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur (1689) where he called
68-498: A plant family known as the walnut family . They are trees , or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales . Members of this family are native to the Americas , Eurasia , and Southeast Asia . The nine or ten genera in the family have a total of around 50 species, and include the commercially important nut -producing trees walnut ( Juglans ), pecan ( Carya illinoinensis ), and hickory ( Carya ). The Persian walnut, Juglans regia ,
85-499: Is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". The delineation of what constitutes a family— or whether a described family should be acknowledged— is established and decided upon by active taxonomists . There are not strict regulations for outlining or acknowledging a family, yet in the realm of plants, these classifications often rely on both the vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plant species. Taxonomists frequently hold varying perspectives on these descriptions, leading to
102-480: Is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy . It is classified between order and genus . A family may be divided into subfamilies , which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae , but that family
119-454: Is one of the major nut crops of the world. Walnut, hickory, and gaulin are also valuable timber trees while pecan wood is also valued as cooking fuel. Members of the walnut family have large, aromatic leaves that are usually alternate, but opposite in Alfaroa and Oreomunnea . The leaves are pinnately compound or ternate, and usually 20–100 cm long. The trees are wind-pollinated , and
136-455: The Genera Plantarum of George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker this word ordo was used for what now is given the rank of family. Families serve as valuable units for evolutionary, paleontological, and genetic studies due to their relatively greater stability compared to lower taxonomic levels like genera and species. Juglandaceae See text The Juglandaceae are
153-629: The Cayman Islands , with the greatest diversity being in Cuba , where new species are still being discovered. These snakes are relatively small, averaging to about 30–60 cm (12–24 in) in total length (including the tail). Most species spend their day burrowed underground or under vegetation, surfacing only at night or when it rains. Some species are arboreal and are often seen hiding in bromeliads in trees. The dwarf boas can change color from light (when they are active at night) to dark (inactive in
170-505: The boids , and are classified in the subfamily Ungaliophiinae . There are a relatively large number of fossil snakes that have been described as tropidophiids (because their vertebrae are easy to identify), but which of these are more closely related to Tropidophis and Trachyboa and which are more closely related to Ungaliophis and Exiliboa is unknown. This family is confined to the neotropics , mainly in Hispaniola , Jamaica , and
187-522: The Tropidophiidae, although all of them are probably actually either ungaliophiines or stem afrophidians. Two genera, Falseryx and Rottophis , both from the Oligocene of western Europe, have some similarities with living tropidophiids as well as with ungaliophiines, but for the most part their skulls are poorly preserved, leaving paleontologists to work on just their vertebrae. Paleogene erycines dominated
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#1732851673809204-479: The day). This color change is brought about by the movement of dark pigment granules. When threatened, tropidophiids coil up into a tight ball. A more peculiar defensive behavior is their ability to bleed voluntarily from the eyes, mouth, and nostrils, a trait not unlike the Phrynosoma of North America (commonly known as the horned lizards or “horny toads”), which are famous for auto-hemorrhaging from their eyes as
221-530: The family as a rank intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel (1796). He used families (some of them were not named) in some but not in all his orders of "insects" (which then included all arthropods ). In nineteenth-century works such as the Prodromus of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and
238-512: The flowers are usually arranged in catkins . The fruits of the Juglandaceae are often confused with drupes but are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an involucre and thus not morphologically part of the carpel; this means it cannot be a drupe but is instead a drupe-like nut. The known living genera are grouped into subfamilies, tribes, and subtribes as follows: Modern molecular phylogenetics suggest
255-567: The seventy-six groups of plants he recognised in his tables families ( familiae ). The concept of rank at that time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera , which is far from how the term is used today. In his work Philosophia Botanica published in 1751, Carl Linnaeus employed the term familia to categorize significant plant groups such as trees , herbs , ferns , palms , and so on. Notably, he restricted
272-569: The snake fauna of North America prior to the Miocene explosion of colubroids, but as far as we know all of these species were much more closely related to modern rosy and rubber boas than they were to tropidophiids. The only unequivocal tropidophiid fossils are from the Pleistocene of Florida and the Bahamas. Type genus . Family (biology) Family ( Latin : familia , pl. : familiae )
289-541: The use of this term solely within the book's morphological section, where he delved into discussions regarding the vegetative and generative aspects of plants. Subsequently, in French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson 's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille was used as a French equivalent of the Latin ordo (or ordo naturalis ). In zoology ,
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