DINOWEB - dinosaurs web-site  

Complete Data Base of Paleozoic and Mesozoic Tetrapods.
Paleo-News and illustrations. Big electronic PDF-library.

 
line decor
  
line decor

Download PDF Paleolibrary
 

 

*
?????????? ?????????
сайт о динозаврах
??????? ?????????

рейтинг сайтов
Free Hit Counters

Free Counter
hit counter javascript

myspace hit counter
Powered by counter.bloke.com

Locations of visitors to this page

 
 

Review article: The origins, scaling and loss of tetrapod digits.

December 30 , 2016:

Many of the great morphologists of the nineteenth century marvelled at similarities between the limbs of diverse species, and Charles Darwin noted these homologies as significant supporting evidence for descent with modification from a common ancestor. Sir Richard Owen also took great care to highlight each of the elements of the forelimb and hindlimb in a multitude of species with focused attention on the homology between the hoof of the horse and the middle digit of man. The ensuing decades brought about a convergence of palaeontology, experimental embryology and molecular biology to lend further support to the homologies of tetrapod limbs and their developmental origins. However, for all that we now understand about the conserved mechanisms of limb development and the development of gross morphological disturbances, little of what is presented in the experimental or medical literature reflects the remarkable diversity resulting from the 450 million year experiment of natural selection. An understanding of conserved and divergent limb morphologies in this new age of genomics and genome engineering promises to reveal more of the developmental potential residing in all limbs and to unravel the mechanisms of evolutionary variation in limb size and shape. In this review, we present the current state of our rapidly advancing understanding of the evolutionary origin of hands and feet and highlight what is known about the mechanisms that shape diverse limbs.

Aditya Saxena, Matthew Towers & Kimberly L. Cooper (2017)
Review article: The origins, scaling and loss of tetrapod digits.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 2017 372 20150482
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0482

 



 
             
Hosted by uCoz