Data from: Placing cryptic, recently extinct, or hypothesized taxa into an ultrametric phylogeny using continuous character data: A case study with the lizard Anolis roosevelti

Enormous effort has been put into assembling the tree of life. This progress toward a complete phylogeny of living things has been accomplished through analysis of molecular data. Some lineages are poorly represented in tissue collections, or are unavailable for molecular analysis for other reasons such as restrictive export laws. Other species went extinct recently and are only available in formalin preparations or as sub-fossils. Here, we present a new method for recently extinct or hypothesized taxa into a phylogeny using continuous characters. We show that the method works well on simulated data. We then apply it to the case of placing the Culebra Island Giant Anole (Anolis roosevelti) into an ultrametric phylogeny of Caribbean anoles. Anolis roosevelti is a ‘crown-giant’ anole, once found throughout the Virgin Islands, but that has not been encountered since the 1930s. Although this species is widely thought to be closely related to the Puerto Rican giant anole, A. cuvieri, our ML method actually places A. roosevelti closely related to a clade of morphologically similar species. We are unable, however, to reject a position for A. roosevelti that places it as sister taxon to A. cuvieri; although close relationship with the remainder of Puerto Rican anole species is strongly rejected.