Cranial Musculature of South American Gekkonidae

VIRGINIA SARA LUZ ABDALA

JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY

Wiley - Interscience

Año: 1996 vol. 229 p. 59 - 70

0362-2525

The cranial myology of 13 South American geckos was comparedand analyzed for taxonomic significance. The general pattern emergesthat muscles in this group do not vary substantially from those of other lizards,except that the geckonids have fewer muscle layers. The former condition isparticularly important with respect to the adductor musculature of the jaw,given its fundamental role in the chewing process. A great variety of lizards,both those with the geckonid bauplan and those with other morphologiesexhibit similar basic structures in the jaw adductor muscles, despite significantdifferences in diet. There appears to be no direct correlation between diet andthe morphology of head musculature of lizards. It is hypothesized that differencesbetween and within bauplans can be ascribed to phylogenetic factorsrather than to functional characteristics such as diet and life-styles.Twenty characteristics reflecting minor variations in the Gekkotan bauplanwere selected for comparison in performing a cladistic analysis rooted on thesphaerodactylinid geckoes Coleodactylus amazonicus and C. septentrionalis.Groupings of muscular characteristics resulting from this analysis lead todifferent interpretations of taxonomic relationships from those derived fromprevious studies on the taxa examined.