First nearly complete skull of Gallotia auaritae (lower-middle Pleistocene, Squamata, Gallotiinae) and a morphological phylogenetic analysis of the genus Gallotia
Cruzado-Caballero, Penélope (Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigación en Paleobiología y Geología (Argentina))
Castillo Ruiz, Carolina (Universidad de La Laguna. Departamento de Biología Animal, Edafología y Geología)
Bolet, Arnau (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Colmenero, Juan Ramón (Universidad de Salamanca. Departamento de Geología)
De la Nuez, Julio (Universidad de La Laguna. Departamento de Biología Animal, Edafología y Geología)
Casillas Ruiz, Ramón (Universidad de La Laguna. Departamento de Biología Animal, Edafología y Geología)
Llácer, Sergio (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Bernardini, Federico (The "Abdus Salam" International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Italy))
Fortuny, Josep (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)

Date:	2019
Abstract:	The Canary Islands are an Atlantic archipelago known for its high number of endemic species. Among the most known endemic vertebrate species are the giant lizards of the genus Gallotia. We describe the cranial osteology of the first almost complete and articulated fossil skull of the taxon Gallotia auaritae, recovered from the lower-middle Pleistocene of the La Palma island. In this work, X-ray computed microtomography images were used to perform an exhaustive phylogenetic analysis where most of the extant and fossil species of the genus Gallotia were included for first time. This analysis recovered a monophyletic Gallotia clade with similar topology to that of molecular analyses. The newly described specimen shares some characters with the group formed by G. bravoana, G. intermedia and G. simonyi, G. auaritae, and its position is compatible with a referral to the latter. Our study adds new important data to the poorly known cranial morphology of G. auaritae, and the phylogenetic analysis reveals an unexpected power of resolution to obtain a morphology-based phylogeny for the genus Gallotia, for inferring the phylogenetic position of extinct species and for helping in the identification of fossil specimens.
Grants:	Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2017-82654-P Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2016-75062-P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-86
Note:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Published in:	Scientific reports, Vol. 9 (November 2019) , art. 16629, ISSN 2045-2322

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-52244-z
PMID: 31719546

14 p, 2.5 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP)
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Articles > Published articles