Earless monitor lizard (and snakes?)

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      In my recent post "Re: Corrections (to Coded classification of Squamatiformes)", I put Helodermatidae, Lanthanotidae, and Varanidae back into a single exclusive clade.  However, I am now wondering if Lanthanotidae could actually be the "odd man out" in this group, and that Helodermatidae and Varanidae could form an exclusive clade.  Can anyone tell me if the earless "monitor" lizard (Lanthanotidae) has a compound venom gland in the lower jaw (or is it more like the simple, serial-lobular type)?

      Far more importantly, does the earless monitor lizard really lack such glands in the upper jaw?  Fry et al., Nov. 2005, in their recent article in Nature "Early evolution of the venom system in lizards and snakes") state that anguimorphs have totally lost such maxillary glands.  Has this loss been verified for Lanthanotidae, or is it just being assumed?

     The reason this is important is that Lanthanotidae displays many different snake-like characteristics.  And if Lanthanotidae do possess maxillary glands, then they are still a possible sister-group to the Pythonomorpha clade.
   ---- Thanks,
             Ken Kinman