The ‘message’ of bone tissue in paleoherpetology

Abstract

Some aspects of the historical development of paleohistology in vertebrate paleontology are briefly reviewed, with emphasis on studies of fossil amphibian and reptile bone tissues, as compared with thoses of extant forms. A consideration of bone tissue diversity and of its likely determinism lead to its value as a direct tool in systematics beeing questioned in both extant and extinct forms. Rather, it is suggested that its variations may be used as a biological recorder of ontogenies sensu lato, offering data on species or populations-specific life history traits and even hints at their larger scale evolution among extinct lineages.

Bone histology of aquatic reptiles: what does it tell us about secondary adaptation to an aquatic life?

“…Long bones display a medullary region with no or with a rather small medullary cavity (Laurin et al ., ). In long bones, primary bone generally consists of parallel‐fibred bone tissue with LAGs and various degrees of vascularization (generally simple vascular canals longitudinally oriented and arranged into concentric rows) within a single bone and between bones (de Ricqlès, Castanet & Francillon‐Vieillot, ; A. H, pers. observ.).…”

Use of paleontological and molecular data in supertrees for comparative studies: the example of lissamphibian femoral microanatomy

“…Phylogeny, biomechanical constraints and habitat (e.g. aquatic vs. terrestrial) leave a signature that can be extracted from bone cross‐sections (de Buffrénil & Buffetaut, 1981; de Ricqlès et al. 2004; Laurin et al.…”

Does morphology reflect osteohistology-based ontogeny? A case study of Late Cretaceous pterosaur jaw symphyses from Hungary reveals hidden taxonomic diversity

“…To do this, we investigated histological characteristics reflecting the general pattern of growth and maturation of bone tissues, and thus correlating with the ontogenetic age of the animal. These include mostly vascular features, such as vascular architecture and density, and the relative compactness of the vascular canals, the relative extent of secondary remodeling, and the relative amount of woven bone in the cortex (see e.g., Chinsamy 1994;Varricchio 1993;Erickson and Tumanova 2000;Horner et al 2000de Ricqlès et al 2001de Ricqlès et al , 2003de Ricqlès et al , 2004de Ricqlès et al , 2008Starck and Chinsamy 2002;Chinsamy-Turan 2005;Erickson 2005; Klein and Sander 2008;Stein et al 2010;Stein and Prondvai 2013). Because of the highly variable extent of erosion cavities and the uncertainties related to the development of the mandibular symphyses, we did not use lines of arrested growth (LAGs) as an indicator to assess ontogenetic ages.…”

“…We investigated the relationships with different qualitative and quantitative methods, and also explored the consistency level among the independent results. Because qualitative evaluation of Prondvai E. | 6 bone histological characters is a conventional method for drawing various biological inferences about extinct vertebrates (e.g., Horner et al 2000de Ricqlès et al 2001de Ricqlès et al , 2003de Ricqlès et al , 2004de Ricqlès et al , 2008Sander 2000;Chinsamy-Turan 2005;Erickson 2005;Sander et al 2006;Klein 2010), an important element of our study is that the histomorphometric methods applied here also test how biased the qualitative judgment of measurable histological variables can be. Thus, in addition to the more species-specific points of interest, this study also presents a new methodological approach in intraspecific paleobiological research.…”