Earless monitor lizard (and snakes?)

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      Just wanted to do a quick update.  I have been assured by a reliable source that Lanthanotus does have a compound mandibular gland, and that it lacks maxillary glands (as in helodermatids and varanids).  So the snake-like characteristics of the earless monitor are apparently a combination of plesiomorphies and convergences.  Therefore among the varanoids, this only leaves Necrosauridae as a potential sister group to Pythonomorpha, but unfortunately they are extinct.  Perhaps I will give up on a paraphyletic Anguimorpha eventually, but I'm still not there yet.
    ---- Cheers,
              Ken Kinman