Major
Bioinformatics
Anticipated Graduation Year
2026
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
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Genitalia are some of the most rapidly evolving structures on the vertebrate body, yielding an immense amount of genital diversity. Lizards and snakes have paired genitalia, while all other amniotes have a single, midline phallus. The lizard, Anolis sagrei is an important organism to study the development of genitalia to understand differences between paired and single genitalia. Genital development in A. sagrei begins with two genital swellings in both males and females. Then as the anole progresses, the swellings either elongate into hemipenes or reduce to hemiclitores. The objective of my research was to determine the normal course of male and female genital development in A. sagrei and determine the stages that male and female genitalia diverge to form hemipenes versus hemiclitores.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Dr. Thomas Sanger, Biology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Sexual Differentiation in a Unique Vertebrate Lineage: Mapping the Development of Genitalia in the Lizard Anolis Sagrei
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Genitalia are some of the most rapidly evolving structures on the vertebrate body, yielding an immense amount of genital diversity. Lizards and snakes have paired genitalia, while all other amniotes have a single, midline phallus. The lizard, Anolis sagrei is an important organism to study the development of genitalia to understand differences between paired and single genitalia. Genital development in A. sagrei begins with two genital swellings in both males and females. Then as the anole progresses, the swellings either elongate into hemipenes or reduce to hemiclitores. The objective of my research was to determine the normal course of male and female genital development in A. sagrei and determine the stages that male and female genitalia diverge to form hemipenes versus hemiclitores.