New Lizards from the Middle Eocene Mergen Formation, Mongolian Gobi Desert

New lizard fossils are described from the middle Eocene Mergen Formation, eastern Gobi Desert in Mongolia. Some 30 isolated tooth-bearing jaws represent at least six lizard taxa. These include three new iguanians that are nonchamaeleonid acrodontans; two scincomorphs having uncertain relationships within the group; and one large anguimorph that may represent a platynotan taxon. Discovery of these fossil lizards is important for accumulating nonmammalian vertebrate data, in attempting to understand a major faunal change that took place in relation to the drastic uplifting of the Mongolian Plateau in Palaeogene time.