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A most unusual tail: Scoliosis in a wild Australian skink, and reported incidences and suggested causes of similar malformations amongst squamates
Author(s) -
Bateman Philip W.,
Benken Robyn,
Glowacki Ryan,
Davis Robert A.
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
austral ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.688
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1442-9993
pISSN - 1442-9985
DOI - 10.1111/aec.13155
Subject(s) - skink , lizard , biology , scoliosis , ecology , squamata , population , congenital scoliosis , zoology , medicine , genetics , environmental health
Malformations of vertebrae potentially occur across many taxa, particularly in Testudines, which are susceptible to kyphosis (dorsoventral curvature of the spine). Such malformations may stem from either genetic or environmental origins, and their prevalence and associated impacts on survival remain poorly understood. However, scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine) is rarely reported and especially so in wild lizards. We report here on the first known case of scoliosis in a wild Australian lizard, the skink Ctenotus fallens , from Perth, Western Australia. This occurrence is the first of 805 individuals captured in a natural population monitored annually for the past 11 years. Reporting and monitoring of the frequency of such abnormalities may be a useful indicator of environmental change‐induced impacts on populations.