Lizard

BACKGROUND: Geographic isolation caused by high-altitude valleys promotes the formation of geographic segregation of species, leading to species differentiation. The subgenus Oreosaura contains viviparous species from the Tibetan Plateau and the vicinity of the Tarim Basin, which can be divided into three species complexes according to their geographical distribution: Phrynocephalus vlangalii , Phrynocephalus theobaldi , and Phrynocephalus forsythii . However, molecular data for the P...

Environmental temperatures are increasing worldwide, threatening desert ectotherms already living at their thermal limits. Organisms with flexible thermoregulatory behaviours may be able to mitigate the effects of extreme temperatures by moving among microhabitats, yet little work has tracked movement patterns of desert ectotherms in the wild over diurnal scales or compared behaviour among seasons. Here, we used camera traps to track the thermoregulatory behaviour and microhabitat choices of 30 desert lizards (Messalina bahaldini) in custom, outdoor arenas that provided access to open, rock, and bush microhabitats...

Little is known about the immune response of lizards to Leishmania parasties. In this study, we conducted the first liver transcriptome analysis of two lizards (Phrynocephalus przewalskii and Eremias multiocellata) challenged with L. donovani, endemic to the steppe desert region of northwestern China. Our results revealed that multiple biological processes and immune-related signaling pathways are closely associated with the immune response to experimental L. donovani infection in the two lizards, and that both lizards show similar changes to mammals in terms of immunity to Leishmania...

The study of the brain by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows to obtain detailed anatomical images, useful to describe specific encephalic structures and to analyze possible variabilities. It is widely used in clinical practice and is becoming increasingly used in veterinary medicine, even in exotic animals; however, despite its potential, its use in comparative neuroanatomy studies is still incipient. It is a technology that in recent years has significantly improved anatomical resolution, together with the fact that it is non-invasive and allows for systematic comparative analysis...

Circoviruses (CVs) and cycloviruses (CyVs), members of the family Circoviridae , have been identified only occasionally in non-human primates (NHPs). In this study, we investigated the presence and genetic features of these viruses in 48 NHPs housed in the Bioparco-Rome Zoological Garden (Italy) and in the Anima Natura Wild Sanctuary Semproniano (Grosseto, Italy), testing fecal, saliva, and serum samples with a broadly reactive consensus nested PCR able of amplifying a partial region of the replicase (Rep) gene of members of the family Circoviridae ...

In this study, a new species of the genus Pseudocalotes is described from Yingjiang County, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China, based on four female specimens. It can be distinguished from its congeners by the following combination of characters: (1) interoculabials 3 or 4; (2) canthals 5-7; (3) cicrcumorbitals 8-11; (4) 1 scale between rostral and nasal; (5) interparietal 1; (6) superciliaries 4-6; (7) supralabials 6-7, the 1st in contact with the nasal; (8) infralabials 6-8; (9) transverse gular fold and antehumeral fold present; (10) 2-3 enlarged scales between eye and ear; (11) nuchal crest single, consists of 3-5 erected spines; (12) dorsal crest row single, discontinuous and low, located between two keeled, parallel and enlarged scale rows; (13) enlarged postrictals absent; (14) scales around midbody 53-62, dorsal body scales heterogenous in size and shape; (15) midventrals smaller than dorsals; (16) subdigital scales on the 4th finger 20-26, and on the 4th toe 24-29; (17) dorsal background coloration light taupe with four irregular brown patches along the middle of dorsal; (18) inner lips wathet, tongue aurantiacus, throat bluish black...

BACKGROUND: Leishmania is an intracellular flagellate protozoan parasite that causes a wide range of clinical diseases in humans. The basis of immunological resistance against leishmaniasis depends on Thl reactions and is within the time period of cytokine function. METHODS: In this study, human anti-IL17 antibody and IFNγ-producing promastigote were produced to be used in leishmanization. A sequence of light and heavy chains' gene of anti-IL17 antibody and human IFNγ (hIFNγ) was obtained from the NCBI database and synthesized in the ECORV reaction site in the plasmid pGH, which it's called pGH-hIFNγ-antiIL17...

Central America is home to one of the most abundant herpetofauna in the Americas, occupying only 7% of the continent's total area. Vipers and lizards are among the most relevant venomous animals in medical practice due to the consequences of envenomation from the bite of these animals. A great diversity of biomolecules with immense therapeutic and biotechnological value is contained in their venom. This paper describes the prominent leading representatives of the family Viperidae , emphasizing their morphology, distribution, habitat, feeding, and venom composition, as well as the biotechnological application of some isolated components from the venom of the animals from these families, focusing on molecules with potential anti-thrombotic action...

Segmenting and classifying nuclei in H&E histopathology images is often limited by the long-tailed distribution of nuclei types. However, the strong generalization ability of image segmentation foundation models like the Segment Anything Model (SAM) can help improve the detection quality of rare types of nuclei. In this work, we introduce category descriptors to perform nuclei segmentation and classification by prompting the SAM model. We close the domain gap between histopathology and natural scene images by aligning features in low-level space while preserving the high-level representations of SAM...

Adhesive toe pads have evolved numerous times over lizard evolutionary history, most notably in geckos. Despite significant variation in adult toe pad morphology across independent origins of toe pads, early developmental patterns of toe pad morphogenesis are similar among distantly related species. In these distant phylogenetic comparisons, toe pad variation is achieved during the later stages of development. We aimed to understand how toe pad variation is generated among species sharing a single evolutionary origin of toe pads (house geckos-Hemidactylus)...

The mitochondrion, which is an intracellular organelle responsible for most of the energy-producing pathways, can have its genome targeted for climate-driven selection. However, climate-driven mitochondrial selection remains a sparsely studied area in reptiles. Here, we reported the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a lacertid lizard ( Takydromus intermedius ) and used mitogenomes from 54 species of lacertid lizards to study their phylogenetic relationships and to identify the mitochondrial genes under positive selection by climate...

To understand the biology of a species it is often crucial to be able to differentiate males and females. However, many species lack easily identifiable sexually dimorphic traits. In those that possess sex chromosomes, molecular sexing offers a good alternative, and molecular sexing assays can be developed through the comparison of male and female genomic sequences. However, in many non-model species sex chromosomes are poorly differentiated, and identifying sex-linked sequences and developing sexing assays is challenging without additional genomic resources...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Carbendazim (CBZ) is a benzimidazole fungicide widely used worldwide in industrial, agricultural, and veterinary practices. Although, CBZ was found in all brain tissues causing serious neurotoxicity, its impact on brain immune cells remain scarcely understood. Our study investigated the in vitro effects of CBZ on activated microglial BV-2 cells. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated BV-2 cells were exposed to increasing concentrations of CBZ and cytokine release was measured by ELISA, and Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) assays...

As amniote vertebrates, lizards are the most closely related organisms to humans capable of appendage regeneration. Lizards can autotomize, or release their tails as a means of predator evasion, and subsequently regenerate a functional replacement. Green anoles ( Anolis carolinensis ) can regenerate their tails through a process that involves differential expression of hundreds of genes, which has previously been analyzed by transcriptomic and microRNA analysis. To investigate protein expression in regenerating tissue, we performed whole proteomic analysis of regenerating tail tip and base...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Premise of the study: On islands, flowering plants tend to be more generalist in their pollination needs, as insects (the main pollinators of flowering plants) are underrepresented in these ecosystems compared to the mainland. In addition, some vertebrate species that are typically insectivorous or granivorous on the mainland are forced to broaden their diet and consume other resources such as nectar or pollen on the islands. The shrub Malva arborea , with its large and colourful flowers, attracts different groups of potential pollinators...

Gnathiaantennacrassa sp. nov. from seagrass beds off Rottnest Island, Western Australia is the first record of any gnathiid from the entirety of Western Australia; the male can be distinguished from congeners by the stout peduncular articles of the antenna. Gnathiataurus sp. nov. is described from two adult specimens reared from praniza larvae found infecting elasmobranch fishes at Heron Island, southern Great Barrier Reef; the males can be distinguished from all congeners by the dorsally strongly elongate mandibles and smoothly rounded mediofrontal process on the anterior part of cephalosome...

A list of acrodont lizard type specimens extant in the Naturalis collection is presented here for the first time. The collections combines original specimens of the former Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden (RMNH) and the former Zologisch Museum Amsterdam (ZMA). Currently the Naturalis collection holds primary types of 25 agamid lizard species (11 holotypes, six lectotypes and syntypes for eight species, including types of two species where the type status is unclear) as well as numerous secondary types for 22 species (14 para- and eight paralectotype series)...

Bronchocela celebensis Gray, 1845 is one of the rarest species of the genus, known only from less than 20 museum specimens collected from northern Sulawesi. It is often confused with its similar congener, B. cristatella, which occurs widely throughout the Indonesian Archipelago and Peninsular Malaysia, except on the Sulawesi mainland. Here, we examine the morphology of B. celebensis based on 46 museum specimens including freshly collected individuals, and redescribe the species based on the holotype (by monotypy)...