Comparative analisis of post cranial skeleton in Bothrops and Crotalus using bidimensional geometric morphometrics and its morphological implications in Viperidae (Squamata, Serpentes)

• Grant number: 19/00409-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2019
• End date: June 30, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Annie Schmaltz Hsiou
• Grantee: Sílvia Oliveira Lomba
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Knowing vertebral morphologic characteristics of serpents is essential to its anatomical, systematic and especially paleontological study. However, descriptions of the skeleton in some groups are rare or too superficial. This is the case of the Viperids. All observed and rarely reported differences are extremely sutil and require substantial descriptive refinement and discriminant analises to be understood. In this sense, the present study will analise morphological characteristics of the vertebral column in Crotalus and Bothrops using minucious morphological comparisons and the application of bidimentional geometric morphometrics, looking to verify the interspecific and intraspecific columnar variation and its systematic and paleontological implications in Viperidae. Observed characteristics will be described, photographed and analyzed analytically (i.e. using statistical and geometric morphometric softwares). The results are going to contribute to precise taxonomic attributions of fossils already found, but with generic affinities, as well as help future phylogenetic analisis of the family Viperidae.