Today@山姆文章
Professor Helps Sequence DNA From Extinct Giant Gecko
2023年6月21日
SHSU媒体联系人: Mikah博伊德
山姆 Houston State University associate professor 胡安Diego Daza in the Department of Biological 科学 collaborated with fellow herpetology researchers nationwide to place an extinct, 巨型壁虎 in its proper place on the evolutionary timeline. Their collaborative research allowed them to not only contribute to the study of the evolution of geckos but also added to current discussions of gigantism in isolated island environments.
DNA from a 200-year-old museum specimen helped researchers resolve the evolutionary relationships of an extinct, 巨型壁虎. Extracting and sequencing DNA from the gecko allowed researchers to reconstruct its evolutionary relationships with living gecko species. 研究结果发表在《十大正规网堵网址》杂志上。科学报告," place the specimen in the gecko evolutionary tree and provide insights as to where the giant creature might have lived.
德尔考特巨壁虎, Gigarcanum delcourti, was formally described by scientists Aaron Bauer and Anthony Russell in 1986. The description is based on a single individual discovered in the collection of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Marseille in France. The specimen was unique for many reasons, the most obvious being its enormous size. 没有尾巴的尸体只有14岁.5 inches (370 mm) long – approximately 50% longer than the next largest known gecko species, Rhacodactylus leachianus.
"I cannot overemphasize how huge this gecko is. Most geckos are small, just a few inches long, Gigarcanum delcourti 是一只小家猫的大小吗,托尼·甘布尔说, 来自马凯特大学, 也是这项研究的合著者.
Gigarcanum delcourti is presumed extinct as no living specimens have ever been found in the wild. This gecko is a close relative of the crested gecko, which is commonly used as a pet.
It is unknown where the 巨型壁虎 lived in the wild. 唯一的 Gigarcanum delcourti specimen was most likely acquired by the museum between 1833 and 1869 but records from this time are incomplete, leaving the timing and exact source unknown. The 巨型壁虎 was outwardly similar to geckos from New Zealand and roughly matched the description of the kawekaweau, 毛利人民间传说中的巨型蜥蜴. Gigarcanum delcourti DNA, 然而, shows that it is closely related to geckos from New Caledonia, a French island territory northeast of Australia and north of New Zealand.
“Gigarcanum delcourti was the first of more than 200 geckos I have described during my career, 它仍然是最耐人寻味的. It is rewarding to be able to revisit it and decipher its ancestry nearly 40 years after I first set eyes on the specimen in Marseille,亚伦·鲍尔说, the Lemole endowed chair in Integrative Biology at 维拉诺瓦大学 也是这项研究的合著者.
现存最大的壁虎物种 Rhacodactylus leachianus, 来自新喀里多尼亚, allowing researchers to make sense of these results in light of what they know about the evolution of large body size in geckos. 但 G. delcourti, 哪一个在这里被分配到一个新的属, represents an independent attainment of large size among the New Caledonian gecko lineage.
“Placing this species in its evolutionary context allows us to more accurately measure patterns of change over time in geckos,” said Matthew Heinicke from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and lead author of the study. “It turns out that this giant species belongs to an entire group of geckos that rapidly diverged in body size after they began diversifying in New Caledonia some 25 million years ago, perhaps because these rapid changes were adaptive in an isolated island environment that only a few other reptiles successfully colonized.”
提取DNA, the researchers drilled the leg bone of the 巨型壁虎, which is roughly smaller than a chicken thigh bone, 提取干骨髓组织, a rich tissue in blood vessels packed with platelets, 它们有线粒体和血细胞.
“I am used to working with geckos in the other limit of the size spectrum, the miniaturized species like many geckolets living in the Caribbean and South America, so just looking at this giant animal makes you wonder about many physical constraints that they might have faced,达扎说.
The study involved researchers from the University of Michigan–Dearborn; Louisiana State University Shreveport; Florida Museum of Natural History, 佛罗里达大学; 维拉诺瓦大学; 罗格斯University-Camden; 山姆 Houston State University; The Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota; Milwaukee Public Museum; and Marquette University.
-结束-
This page maintained by SHSU's 通信 办公室:
内容传播总监: 艾米丽Binetti
分类. 导演的内容 & 社交媒体: 艾米丽白
通信管理器: Mikah博伊德
电话:936.294.1837
通信专家: 坎贝尔阿特金斯
电话:936.294.2638
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@山姆.edu