| can pregnant lizards adjust their offspring phenotypes to environmental conditions? | we exposed females of a highly placentotrophic viviparous scincid lizard (pseudemoia pagenstecheri) to various environmental factors during pregnancy, and quantified the effects of these treatments on their offspring. the clear result was that the phenotypes of neonatal lizards can be substantially modified by the environment that their mother experiences during gestation. restricting prey availability to the females reduced the size of their offspring. limiting the females' basking opportunitie ... | 1999 | 28308149 |
| do pregnant lizards resorb or abort inviable eggs and embryos? morphological evidence from an australian skink, pseudemoia pagenstecheri. | although pregnant viviparous squamates are sometimes claimed to be able to resorb inviable eggs and embryos from the uterus, definitive evidence for such resorption is not available. after placing pregnant female pseudemoia pagenstecheri into conditions under which embryonic development is terminated, we periodically harvested the gravid oviducts and examined them histologically. females contained abnormal and degenerating eggs and embryos that had died in various stages of development. dead emb ... | 2003 | 12635112 |
| maternal provision and embryonic uptake of calcium in an oviparous and a placentotrophic viviparous australian lizard (lacertilia: scincidae). | embryos of oviparous lizards have two sources of calcium for embryonic development: 1) calcium that accumulates in yolk during vitellogenesis, and 2) calcium carbonate deposited in the eggshell from oviductal secretions. eggs of viviparous lizards lack a calcified eggshell and calcium secreted by the uterus is delivered to the embryo across a placenta. whereas oviparous lizard embryos recover calcium from the eggshell during late developmental growth stages, viviparous embryos have a lengthy int ... | 2009 | 19223019 |
| placental development and expression of calcium transporting proteins in the extraembryonic membranes of a placentotrophic lizard. | pseudemoia pagenstecheri is a viviparous australian scincid lizard in which the maternal-embryonic placental interface is differentiated into structurally distinct regions. the chorioallantoic placenta contains an elliptical-shaped region, the placentome, characterized by hypertrophied uterine and embryonic epithelial cells supported by dense vascular networks. the remainder of the chorioallantoic placenta, the paraplacentome, is also highly vascularized but uterine and chorionic epithelia are t ... | 2012 | 22025015 |