Caudal autotomy in West Indian Amphisbaena

The family Amphisbaenidae is comprised of eighteen genera and over 130 species. Members of this family are distributed throughout the Greater Antilles, South America East of the Andes, slightly north of the African equator to South Africa, throughout the straight of Gibraltar including Morocco, Spain, and Portugal, and the upper Middle East. For this study I cleared and stained and serial sectioned West Indian Amphisbaena specimens to address several questions about the unique tail autotomy system found in this group. My primary goal was to describe in detail the osteological structures and musculature involved in autotomy of the tail. I also address questions of regeneration in these lizards. Additionally, I address issues of autotomic vertebra evolution in light of past work and recent published phylogenies of these reptiles or those that have included them as part of a sampling for squamate phylogeny --Abstract, page iii