Tag: embryo

Postura de Anolis huilae: Communal Nesting!

En el marco de mi investigación sobre la Eco-fisiología térmica de Anolis huilae, me encontré (en mi finca) con un par de posturas, una con cuatro huevos y otra con 22 huevos. Este hallazgo me sorprendió, al encontrar diferentes tamaños en los huevos.

Postura de Anolis huilae, Juntas (Ibagué-Tolima-Colombia)

Postura de Anolis huilae, Juntas (Ibagué-Tolima-Colombia)

En mi curiosidad por determinar si efectivamente se trataba de huevos de la especie en mención, me di a la tarea de abrir uno para corroborar, encontrando un individuo en un estadío de su formación (el ejemplar fue donado al Laboratorio de Herpetología de la Universida del Tolima).

Embrión de Anolis huilae.

Embrión de Anolis huilae.

He comenzado hacerle el seguimiento a esa postura, in situ, midiendo y pesando cada uno de los huevos.

Considero que este hallazgo aportará detalles acerca de la historia de vida de Anolis huilae, aún desconocida.

Baby Anoles – Cute, Cuddly, and Easily Staged!

Check out this piece in the New Scientist, which picked up on our images of Anolis embryos and Thom’s awesome research!

Embryo of Anolis longitibialis, a trunk-ground anole from the Dominican Republic.

The readers of this blog do not need to be convinced that anoles are an amazing model system in evolutionary biology. New and exciting research often finds its way to the Anole Annals. Here we’ve learned about emerging trends in Anolis genomics, speciation, and comparative phylogenetics, to list just a few. In recent years, Anolis has also become a model system for developmental biology. For example, a recent study by Dr. Thom Sanger demonstrated that the diversity of limb dimensions among ecomorphs have evolved from similar developmental mechanisms.

This summer I worked a bit with Thom to learn how to stage Anolis embryos using his handy staging series as a guide. The goal of the project was to determine the stage at which female anoles laid eggs under two treatment conditions – a hot treatment (32°C) and a cold treatment (20°C). I had females from three populations of A. cybotes (55, 700, and 1400 meters in elevation), one population of A. shrevei (2450 m), and one population of A. longitibialis (100m). Unfortunately, I was unable to collect very many eggs despite letting the experiment run for six weeks. I did, however, manage to get several beautiful embryos, which I have imaged and staged. Here I’ll provide some pictures and give a few shorthand methods for staging Anolis embryos.

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