Global Herpetological Osteology: A Preliminary Overview on The European Taxa

DELFINO, MASSIMO; BAUER, AARON; CAMAITI, MARCO; GARDNER, JAMES; GEORGALIS, GEORGIOS; GÓMEZ, RAÚL ORENCIO; LORÉAL-MARON, ERWAN; MACALUSO, LOREDANA; MATTHEWS, THALASSA; PILI, MATTEO; RACCA, LUCA; SEGHETTI, SIMONE; SCHEYER, TORSTEN; WENCKER, LUKARDIS; VILLA, ANDREA

Milan

Congreso; XX European Congress of Herpetology; 2019

Osteological information for extant amphibians and reptiles is scattered through numerous papers and books; this hinders a precise perception of what is known and what is not. In order to aggregate in a synthetic way the available published information and to determine which taxa and topics warrant further attention, we started to compile an online database that records, besides the species and where its osteology is presented, the following key data: anatomical region documented, intraspecific variation (e.g., individual, ontogenetic, sexual), nature of the information (e.g., description, figure or table, scoring for cladistic analysis, measurements for geometric morphometrics or finite element analysis), type of preparation/source of the information (e.g., dry skeleton, clearing and staining, tomography, X-rays, histological section), number of specimens analyzed, and if the osteological information is associated with the description of a new species. The first published work on this topic appears to be ?De quadrupedibus digitatis [?]? issued posthumously in 1637 by Aldrovandi, which depicts, among others, a partial skeleton of Salamandra salamandra next to the whole animal, as well as a skull of Caretta caretta. The osteology for most of the currently recognized 80 amphibian and 144 European reptile species (see Sillero etal. 2014) has been at least partially described in about 300 publications so far: 72 amphibians and 118 reptiles. Despite this broad taxonomic coverage, few European species have detailed descriptions for their entire skeleton as most accounts are focused on the skull, with the exception of urodelans (mostly vertebrae) and turtles (mostly shell).