Amphibian abnormalities: Historical records of a museum collection in Tucuman Province, Argentina

摘要

We analyze patterns of abnormalities in anurans from Tucumán, Argentina, deposited in the Fundación Miguel Lillo collection. We examined 1651 specimens collected between 1940 and 2010. Overall abnormality prevalence was 4.4% for post-metamorphic individuals. The most common types of abnormalities affected the hindlimbs, and concerned reductions in the number of phalanges. Abnormality prevalence for post-metamorphic individuals did not vary by species or region, but varied temporally over the 50 year dataset. Overall abnormality prevalence was higher for tadpoles (30%), and the most common types of abnormality were extraneous projections in the marginal papillae of oral discs. In tadpoles, abnormality types varied among species, development stages and affected oral disc regions.