Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Congress on Modern Sciences CONGRESS-TAŞKENT ULUSLARARASI MODERN BİLİMSEL ARAŞTIRMALAR KONGRESİ, Toskent, Özbekistan, 10 - 11 Mayıs 2022, ss.1-35
Lizards
comprise 7176 described species all over the world. Of these, 362 species
belong to the family Lacertidae. Herein, the cranial skeletal differences and
similarities of Anatololacerta anatolica (Werner, 1900) and Anatololacerta
pelasgiana (Mertens 1959) species, which are distributed in the south and
north of the Büyük Menderes River in Turkey and are included in the family
Lacertidae, were investigated. Osteological
characters are important for biological information. In the crrent study, the
cranial osteology of A. anatolica
and A. pelasgiana are described based on cleared and
double-stained specimens. We used 15 museum samples, which stored in the Fauna
Flora Research and Applied Centre (Dokuz Eylül University), for each species in
the current study. Our result suggests that at least the skull roof, nasal and
palatal regions of skull of A. anatolica can be distinguished from those
of specimens of A. pelasgiana. These differences are caused by the nasal
process of the premaxilla, the posterior process of the nasal, the junction of
the anterolateral and anteromedial process of the frontal, the posterolateral
margin of the frontal and the numbers of teeth that are on the premaxilla, maxilla,
dentary, and pterygoid bones.
Despite the
large number of lacertid lizards, information about the detailed descriptions
of their cranial osteology is scarce. In this study, comparative detailed
cranial osteology of these two allopatric species separated by the Büyük
Menderes River as a geographic barrier was performed. In this way, it is aimed
to provide important data for future comparative morphological studies.