Tail Regeneration in the Geckonid Lizard,Sphaerodactylus

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In the Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences for 1686 (vol. ii, p. 7, published 1733) under the heading of ‘Diverses Observations Anatomiques’ is an account of the researches of three savants, Thevenot, Du Verney, and Perrault, on regeneration of the tail in the European Green Lizard. Perrault found that in the new tail, instead of vertebrae, ‘il n'y avoit qu'un cartilage de la grosseur d'une grosse épingle’. It was not until nearly a century and a half later that this basic observation was extended when Dugès (1829) described this element of the regenerate as ‘un cartilage d'une seule pièce, blanc, flexible, fistuleux, et rempli d'un prolongement du cordon ou faisceau nerveux rachidien’. Not before the main framework of microscopical anatomy had been built in succeeding generations was the exact nature of this nervous component determined. Gegenbaur (1862) realized that although it was a continuation of the spinal cord, the full medullary structure was lacking.
Keywords