= Lacertidae
{c}
<Lacertidae> is a family of <lizards> within <Lacertoidea>, distinct from <Teiidae>, <Gymnophthalmidae> and <amphisbaenians>. It provides an important comparison for the latter group: common ancestry can connect normally limbed lizards with highly modified burrowing forms, so a wormlike body is not by itself a reliable map of evolutionary relationships.<Integrated Analyses Resolve Conflicts over Squamate Reptile Phylogeny and Reveal Unexpected Placements for Fossil Taxa by Tod W. Reeder and others>[combined-data phylogeny, Lacertoidea]{ref}
<Lacertidae> is also a useful system for investigating <thermoregulation>. A 2019 comparative study related environmental temperatures to thermal physiology and to the evolutionary histories inferred from genomic data. Behavioral choices, such as basking or using shaded shelter, are relevant because the air temperature at a site is not automatically an animal's body temperature.<Environmental temperatures shape thermal physiology as well as diversification and genome-wide substitution rates in lizards by Joan Garcia-Porta and others>[thermal physiology, preferred temperatures and discussion of basking]{ref}
For an illustrative measurement design, offer a lizard a range of warm and cool positions and record both its chosen position and body temperature. Repeating the assay at different background temperatures distinguishes an available environment from the temperature the animal actively selects. Comparisons between <species> then require the same measurement protocol and an account of their relatedness; otherwise a difference caused by the assay or shared ancestry can be mistaken for an independent adaptation.
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