ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their critical comments and suggestions on the manuscript. Financial support for this study was provided to S.B. by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), New Delhi, Government of India. G.V.R.P acknowledges the grants for the Department of Geology, University of Jammu, under the FIST program of DST. We thank V.V. Kapur, D.P. Das and N. Saravanan for their considerable help, both in the field and laboratory. Thanks also to officers of the Vastan mine for facilitating field investigations and to O. Verma for processing the photographic images of agamid lizard specimens and making the figures.