Anurans are the most suitable vertebrate group to see the development and also evolution in the skull, compared to other terrestrial vertebrates as they show highly derived morphology. For this reason, the cranium of anurans has been widely used for analyzing ., development and integration, evolutionary history, phylogenetic relationships, sexual dimorphism; and for taxon determination. We applied geometric morphometric techniques and then multivariate statistical analyses to see the skull size and shape variations in closely related Bufo species (B. bufo and B. verrucosissimus) inhabiting Turkey. Females have larger skull than males for both species. |
