Is sex a product of genes, the environment, or both? In this review, we describe the diversity of sex-determining mechanisms in reptiles, with a focus on systems that display gene-environment interactions. We summarise the field and laboratory-based evidence for the occurrence of environmental sex reversal in reptiles and ask whether this is a widespread evolutionary mechanism affecting the evo...

Vertebral laminae are bony ridges or sheets that connect important morphological landmarks on the vertebrae, like diapophyses or zygapophyses. They usually exhibit some serial variation throughout the column. A consistent terminology facilitates the morphological description of this variation, and the recognition of patterns that could be taxonomically significant and could serve as phylogeneti...

The helminths infesting the common lizard, Zootoca vivipara (Jacquin, 1787), were studied with special attention to the relations between the number of nematodes, Oswaldocruzia filiformis (Goeze, 1782), and the size, sex and age class of the host. The possible seasonality of the parasite intensity and the relationship with the feeding habits of the host were also tested. Helminth infracommuniti...

The green lizards of the genus Lacerta (Sauria, Lacertidae) comprise nine recognized species, which in Europe are mainly restricted to the southern peninsulas. Four of them (L. trilineata, L. viridis, L. bilineata and L. agilis) occur in Greece. The uncertainty of morphological diversification renders the taxonomic assignment into species and subspecies problematic. In this study sequence data ...

The Hokou gecko (Gekko hokouensis: Gekkonidae, Gekkota, Squamata) has the chromosome number 2n = 38, with no microchromosomes. For molecular cytogenetic characterization of the gekkotan karyotype, we constructed a cytogenetic map for G. hokouensis, which retains the ancestral karyotype of Gekkota, with 86 functional genes, and compared it with cytogenetic maps for four Toxicofera species that h...

Ultraviolet (UV) vision and UV colour patches have been reported in a wide range of taxa and are increasingly appreciated as an integral part of vertebrate visual perception and communication systems. Previous studies with Lacertidae, a lizard family with diverse and complex coloration, have revealed the existence of UV-reflecting patches that may function as social signals. However, confirmati...