The Head Musculature of Xenosaurus grandis

Xenosaurus grandis is another rather poorly studied anguinomorph species. The first comprehensive description of the skeleton was given by Barrows and Smith (1947). Camp (1923) studied the throat musculature, and Haas (1960) described the trigeminal jaw musculature. McDowell and Bogert (1954) added little new information to the account of Barrows and Smith (1947), but allocated their family Xenosauridae (including Xenosaurus and Shinisaurus) to a tentative phylogenetic position derived from the Gerrhonotinae, based mainly on the presence of fused frontals and of an elongated suture between the nasals and the prefrontals. Such an arrangement has later been accepted by Estes (1963).