Sceloporus consobrinus

Sceloporus consobrinus formerly was included in S. undulatus. The traditionally recognized Sceloporus undulatus is morphologically highly variable (e.g., see Stebbins 1985, Conant and Collins 1991, Hammerson 1999).

Leaché and Reeder (2002) examined range-wide mtDNA variation and identified at least four apparently monophyletic (but morphologically highly variable) groups, which they proposed as species under the evolutionary species concept (Eastern group: east of Mobile Bay; Central group: east of the Rockies and west of Mobile Bay; Western group: southern Wyoming to central Arizona and northern New Mexico; Southwestern group: eastern Arizona and central New Mexico to northern Mexico and western Texas). All of the groups are discordant with recognized subspecies circumscriptions. For example, the Central group encompasses six nominal subspecies ranging from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to the Gulf Coast of southern Mississippi. Populations of the morphologically distinctive subspecies erythrocheilus in central Colorado grouped with subspecies garmani (Central group) rather than with populations of erythrocheilus in south-central Colorado (Western group). Leaché and Reeder (2002) tentatively proposed the following names: eastern group, S. undulatus; central group, S. consobrinus; western group, S. tristichus; southwestern group, S. cowlesi. However, Leaché and Reeder identified no diagnostic characters for any of the proposed species, and the distributions of proposed species were only coarsely mapped and do not correspond closely with the distributions of previously recognized subspecies, leaving in doubt the specific identities of many Sceloporus populations.

Further integrated study of genetic variation, using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, and more detailed genetic examination of various geographic areas (Niewiarowski et al. 2004; Leaché and Cole 2007; Leaché 2009) has helped clarify relationships among "S. undulatus" populations. Recognition of the four species proposed by Leaché and Reeder (2002) seems to be a justifiable change in the treatment of this complex, but the precise distributions of the taxa near some clade boundaries remain problematic. Leaché and Cole (2007) acknowledged the challenges imposed by apparent decoupling of morphological, karyotypic, and mtDNA divergence that may occur among populations in this complex and noted that conclusions about the number of species in the S. undulatus complex are directly linked to the particular "threshold' one imposes to define species status.

Leaché and Reeder (2002) noted that the name S. thayerii may be the correct name of this species and that populations east of the Mississippi River along the Gulf Coast may represent a separate species (de Quieroz and Reeder, in Crother 2012). Dixon (2013) included Calhoun County, Texas, which includes the type locality of S. thayerii, within the distribution of S. consobrinus; however, he did not indicate a morphological basis for distinguishing S. consobrinus from S. cowlesi, nor did he provide genetic evidence for his distributional inference (Crother 2017).

According to Leaché and Reeder (2002), the range includes a large area in central North America, from eastern Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri southward to at least eastern New Mexico, central Texas, Louisiana, and southern Mississippi. The "eastern extent approaches Mobile Bay" (Leaché and Reeder 2002). Leaché and Reeder (2002) provided only coarse-scale range maps and did not include distributional details for areas where the range of this species adjoins or approaches the ranges of S. undulatus, S. tristichus, or S. cowlesi. Powell et al. (2016) mapped the range as extending from southwestern Wyoming, Nebraska, extreme southern South Dakota, and parts of northern Missouri south through eastern Colorado, eastern New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas to southern Texas, portions of southern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and extreme southwestern Alabama.

This species is represented by a large number of occurrences (subpopulations) and locations.