Bufotes variabilis (Pallas, 1769)

Yildirim, Elif & Kaya, Uğur, 2017, Chondrocranial differences in Bufotes variabilis (Anura: Bufonidae): geometric morphometric comparison with two anuran species, Turkish Journal of Zoology 41 (2), pp. 241-249 : 241

B. variabilis mating pairs in amplexus were collected from a clean temporary pond in the vicinity of Bornova (İzmir, * Correspondence: [e-mail] Turkey) in 2006. A total of 139 lab-reared larvae were examined. Sample sizes for each species were as follows: B. variabilis : n = 72; R. macrocnemis : n = 38; and H. orientalis : n = 29. Tadpoles were staged according to Gosner (1960) and represented Gosner stages 26–40. To study GMM, 66 larvae of B. variabilis were analyzed to determine intraspecific variation whereas 139 larvae were used for interspecific variation. Later stages were not included because of morphological changes. The descriptions of all larvae were based on cleared specimens and double staining for bone and cartilage following established protocol ( Wassersug, 1976). Chondrocranial terminology follows Cannatella (1999) and Púgener and Maglia (1997).

Dorsal views of the chondrocranium of all specimens (with a 1-mm scale bar) were photographed with a Leica DFC295 stereoscope equipped with a digital camera. A total of 10 dorsal landmarks ( Table 1) were digitized with tpsDig V.1.40 ( Rohlf, 2004) on the right half of the chondrocranium of three species ( B. variabilis , R. macrocnemis , and H. orientalis ). We selected the landmarks that represent the corners of the chondrocranial elements. Geometric morphometric analyses were done with tpsDig (version 2.16) and MorphoJ (version 1.05d) software. Canonical variate analysis (CVA) was done to maximize the differences among species.