BACKGROUND Studies of lizards have shown that offspring size cannot be altered by manipulating clutch size in species with a high clutch frequency. This raises a question of whether clutch frequency has a key role in influencing the offspring size-number trade-off in lizards. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS To test the hypothesis that females reproducing more frequently are less likely to trad...

Satellite DNA repeats were studied in Caucasian populations of 18 rock lizard species of the genus Darevskia. Four subfamilies (Caucasian Lacerta satellites (CLsat)I-IV) were identified, which shared 70%-75% sequence similarity. The distribution of CLsat subfamilies among the species was studied. All the species could be divided into at least 3 clades, depending on the content of CLsat subfamil...

The desert lizards (Meroles: Lacertidae) form a small clade of ground-dwelling taxa inhabiting arid southwest Africa (Arnold, 1991). All seven species have some portion of their range in the Namib Desert, and four of the seven are Namib endemics. Their close geographic ties to the Namib are hypothesized to reflect an interesting pattern of speciation, one in which the lineage infiltrated progre...

The ability of an animal to shed its tail is a widespread antipredator strategy among lizards. The degree of expression of this defense is expected to be shaped by prevailing environmental conditions including local predation pressure. We test these hypotheses by comparing several aspects of caudal autotomy in 15 Mediterranean lizard taxa existing across a swath of mainland and island localitie...

A broad sample of Darevskia rudis from the main part of its range was reviewed with regard to external morphology (discriminant, UPGMA, MST and ANOVA analyses) and osteology. Darevskia bithynica is raised to species rank, with two subspecies: D. b. bithynica and D. b. tristis. The other subspecies are fairly similar (D. r. rudis being the most different). Two singular populations are described ...

A survey of gastrointestinal helminth communities of Gallotia caesaris caesaris (Lehrs, 1914) and G. c. gomerae (Boettger and MUller, 1914), from the islands of El Hierro and La Gomera, respectively, in the Canary Archipelago, Spain, was conducted to determine the prevalence, intensity, and diversity of intestinal parasites of these lacertid lizards. Larval forms of cestodes, nematodes, and aca...

Phylogenetic relationships among species and subspecies of the Canary Island endemic lizard genus Gallotia are inferred based on nucleotide sequences of fragments of 12S ribosomal RNA and cytochrome b mitochondrial genes. The four morphologically established species have also been recognized at the molecular level. Relative affinities among species follow an eastern-western geographic transect....

Insects use various types of behaviour, chemical defences, mimetic, aposematic or cryptic appearances as anti-predatory strategies. Among insects, carabid beetles of the genus Brachinus are distasteful prey because they discharge an irritating "cloud" of quinones when threatened. These beetles live in aggregations and adopt warning (conspicuous pattern) colours and chemicals to create a templat...