Morphology of skin of the european blind cave salamander Proteus anguinus

Človeška ribica ali močeril (Proteus anguinus) je jamska repata dvoživka, endemit podzemnih voda Dinarskega krasa. Je neotenična dvoživka, ki spolno dozori na stopnji ličinke. Značilnosti ličink se odražajo tudi v zgradbi njene kože. V diplomskem delu smo na histoloških preparatih prečnih prerezov trupa analizirali zgradbo kože različno velikih osebkov. Primerjali smo debelino kože in relativno gostoto Leydigovih celic (Lyc) v epidermisu in večceličnih sluznih žlez (SŽ) v dermisu. Ugotovili smo, da je pri večini osebkov koža hrbtne strani trupa debelejša, kot na trebušni strani. Prav tako je debelejša pri večjih osebkih. Relativna gostota Lyc je večja v epidermisu na hrbtni strani, kot na trebušni strani trupa. Manjši osebki imajo v epidermisu več Lyc, večji osebki pa več SŽ v dermisu.The olm or proteus (Proteus anguinus) is a cave-dwelling urodelan amphibian, endemic to the underground waters of the Dinaric karst. It is a neotenic amphibian that achieves sexual maturity in its larval stage. Its larval characteristics are also reflected in the structure of its skin. In my Bachelor’s thesis, we used the histological slides of cross sections of the body to analyse the skin grossmorphology in specimens of different size. We compared the thickness of the skin and the relative density of the Leydig cells ( “Lyc”) in the epidermis, and the relative density of the multicellular mucus glands (“MG”) in the dermis. The research showed that the skin on the dorsal side of the body is, in most cases, thicker than on the the ventral side, as well as thatthe skin is thicker in larger specimens. The relative density of Lyc is larger in the epidermis on the dorsal side of the body. Smaller specimens havemore Lyc in the epidermis, whereas the larger ones have more MG in the dermis