Bright male colors are exhibited primarily during sexual and aggressive displays in iguanids, agamids, chamaeleonids, gekkonids, lacertids, and teiids.

Agamids and chamaeleonids are sister-groups, presumably with the chameleons diverging early from an agamid stock. Agamids and chameleons uniquely share an acrodont dentition on the dentary and posterior maxillary.

Whereas Chamaeleonidae and Iguanidae now appear to be monophyletic, Agamidae is not (Macey et al. 1997) because chameleons evolved from agamids, though they have traditionally been excluded (a problem easily resolved by recognizing a clade called Acrodonta, which includes both agamids and chameleons).

Agamid

Meaning

Noun