scholarly journals Embryonic development and perinatal skeleton in a limbless, viviparous lizard, Anguis fragilis (Squamata: Anguimorpha)

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e11621
Author(s):  
Tomasz Skawiński ◽  
Grzegorz Skórzewski ◽  
Bartosz Borczyk

Despite the long history of embryological studies of squamates, many groups of this huge clade have received only limited attention. One such understudied group is the anguimorphs, a clade comprising morphologically and ecologically very diverse lizards. We describe several stages of embryonic development of Anguis fragilis, a limbless, viviparous anguimorph. Interestingly, in several clutches we observe high morphological variation in characters traditionally important in classifying embryos into developmental stages. The causes of this variation remain unknown but environmental factors do not seem to be very important. Additionally, we describe the state of ossification in several perinatal specimens of A. fragilis. The cranial skeleton is relatively poorly ossified around the time of birth, with all of the bones constituting the braincase unfused. On the other hand, the vertebral column is well ossified, with the neurocentral sutures closed and the neural arches fused in all postatlantal vertebrae. Such an advanced state of ossification may be related to the greater importance of the vertebral column in locomotion in limbless species than in ones with fully-developed limbs. Numerous factors seem to affect the state of ossification at the time of hatching or birth in squamates, including phylogenetic position, mode of reproduction and, potentially, limblessness. However, data from a greater number of species are needed to reach firmer conclusions about the relative importance of these variables in certain clades.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Ayane Suênia-Bastos ◽  
Suianne O. S. Cajé ◽  
Jefferson Duarte-de-Mélo ◽  
Iracilda M. M. Lima

Eudaminae Mabille, 1877 (Hesperiidae), recognized as subfamily recently, is rich in Brazil. It is along the Neotropical Region where a significant part of the diversity is found, however, information that involves the biology of species is poorly yet. This paper gathers new bioecological data of an Aguna species from the municipality of Maceió (Alagoas, Brazil), close to the Environmental Protection Area of “Catolé” and “Fernão Velho”, a remnant of Atlantic Forest. Leaves containing eggs were collected in a peri-urban area (9° 33’ 26” S, 35° 46’ 36” W) and taken to laboratory to observe post-embryonic development. Larvae were also collected from another host plant in an intra-urban area (9° 39’ 40” S, 35° 41’ 58” W). The specimens were identified as Aguna megacles megacles (Mabille, 1888) and the two Fabaceae as Bauhinia pentandra (Bong.) D. Dietr. and Bauhinia monandra Kurz. from exsiccates deposited at the Herbarium. Rearing from the eggs collected on B. pentandra exposes a post-embryonic development that lasted 53.4 days for six larval instars individuals, and 46 days for the five larval instars specimen. The larvae built a shelter since the first instar and in laboratory conditions they preferred pupate on the base of the cage. This is the first report of development features for A. m. megacles, including six and five larval instars, as well as a new locality for the State of Alagoas, and two more host plants of Bauhinia suggesting specialist behavior.


Author(s):  
Nicolás Ortiz ◽  
María Edith Ré

Very little is known about the life history of Robsonella fontaniana. In particular, there are no descriptions of the early life stages that enable correct identification of samples taken from the wild. In this work, eggs and hatchlings are described from egg clutches obtained in the field with brooding females and incubated until hatching. Individual eggs exhibited marked differences in stages of embryonic development within egg clutches or even within a single egg string. For one clutch collected at early stages of embryonic development, embryogenesis took 91 days at 11.5 °C and for a second clutch at intermediate developmental stages it took 68 days at 11 °C and 39 days at 14 °C. For the later clutch the hatching period lasts 25 days at 14 °C. The eggs and paralarvae were small, with an egg length of 3.9–5.2 mm, a dorsal mantle length of 2–3 mm and a total paralarvae length of 3.4–6.0 mm. Chromatophore shape and distribution presented a very distinctive pattern. Characteristics of the eggs, egg strings and paralarvae make it possible to distinguish the early stages of R. fontaniana from those of other octopodid species found off the Atlantic coast of Patagonia.


Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 216-222
Author(s):  
Beatrice De Cardi

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-78
Author(s):  
hank shaw

Portugal has port, Spain has sherry, Sicily has Marsala –– and California has angelica. Angelica is California's original wine: The intensely sweet, fortified dessert cordial has been made in the state for more than two centuries –– primarily made from Mission grapes, first brought to California by the Spanish friars. Angelica was once drunk in vast quantities, but now fewer than a dozen vintners make angelica today. These holdouts from an earlier age are each following a personal quest for the real. For unlike port and sherry, which have strict rules about their production, angelica never gelled into something so distinct that connoisseurs can say, ““This is angelica. This is not.”” This piece looks at the history of the drink, its foggy origins in the Mission period and on through angelica's heyday and down to its degeneration into a staple of the back-alley wino set. Several current vintners are profiled, and they suggest an uncertain future for this cordial.


2019 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 424-428
Author(s):  
Alexandra I. Vakulinskaya

This publication is devoted to one of the episodes of I. A. Ilyin’s activity in the period “between two revolutions”. Before the October revolution, the young philosopher was inspired by the events of February 1917 and devoted a lot of time to speeches and publications on the possibility of building a new order in the state. The published archive text indicates that the development of Ilyin’s doctrine “on legal consciousness” falls precisely at this tragic moment in the history of Russia.


2017 ◽  
Vol 186 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-112
Author(s):  
Lukáš Laibl ◽  
Oldřich Fatka

This contribution briefly summarizes the history of research, modes of preservation and stratigraphic distribution of 51 trilobite and five agnostid taxa from the Barrandian area, for which the early developmental stages have been described.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-190
Author(s):  
Rajkumar Bind

This paper examines the development of modern vaccination programme of Cooch Behar state, a district of West Bengal of India during the nineteenth century. The study has critically analysed the modern vaccination system, which was the only preventive method against various diseases like small pox, cholera but due to neglect, superstation and religious obstacles the people of Cooch Behar state were not interested about modern vaccination. It also examines the sex wise and castes wise vaccinators of the state during the study period. The study will help us to growing conciseness about modern vaccination among the peoples of Cooch Behar district.   


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Catherine Cumming

This paper intervenes in orthodox under-standings of Aotearoa New Zealand’s colonial history to elucidate another history that is not widely recognised. This is a financial history of colonisation which, while implicit in existing accounts, is peripheral and often incidental to the central narrative. Undertaking to reread Aotearoa New Zealand’s early colonial history from 1839 to 1850, this paper seeks to render finance, financial instruments, and financial institutions explicit in their capacity as central agents of colonisation. In doing so, it offers a response to the relative inattention paid to finance as compared with the state in material practices of colonisation. The counter-history that this paper begins to elicit contains important lessons for counter-futures. For, beyond its implications for knowledge, the persistent and violent role of finance in the colonisation of Aotearoa has concrete implications for decolonial and anti-capitalist politics today.  


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document