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Chondrocranial And Oral Morphology Of Leptodactylid Larvae, William Hagood Turner

Master's Theses

I focused my research on Leptodactylidae in order to determine the usefulness of chondrocranial and internal oral characters in systematic and phylogenetic studies of this anuran family. To achieve this goal, I examined the chondrocrania of eight species of the Leptodactylinae: Adenomera marmorata, Edalorhina perezi, Limnomedusa macroglossa, Physalaemus gracilis, P. henselii, P. pustulosus, Pleurodema brachyops, and P. tucumana. Furthermore, I analyzed and described the internal oral anatomy of Physalaeum us gracilis, P. henselii, and Limnomedusa macroglossa and the skeletogenesis of P. gracilis and P. pustulosus. Subsequently, I integrated these data with all available data on the larval chondrocrania and internal …