Tschopp Emanuel
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy.
GeoBioTec, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal.
PLoS One. 2016 Feb 23;11(2):e0149445. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149445. eCollection 2016.
Vertebral laminae are bony ridges or sheets that connect important morphological landmarks on the vertebrae, like diapophyses or zygapophyses. They usually exhibit some serial variation throughout the column. A consistent terminology facilitates the morphological description of this variation, and the recognition of patterns that could be taxonomically significant and could serve as phylogenetic characters. Such a terminology was designed for saurischian dinosaurs, and has also been applied to other members of Archosauriformes. Herein, this terminology is applied for the first time to lizards (Squamata). Probably due to their generally smaller size compared to saurischian dinosaurs, lizards have less developed vertebral laminae. Some laminae could not be recognized in this group and others require new names to account for differences in basic vertebral morphology. For instance, the fusion of diapophysis and parapophysis in lacertids into a structure called synapophysis necessitates the creation of the new term synapophyseal laminae for both diapophyseal and parapophyseal laminae. An assessment of occurrence and serial variation in a number of lacertid species shows that some laminae develop throughout ontogeny or only occur in large-sized species, whereas the distribution of other laminae might prove to be taxonomically significant in future.
椎板是连接椎骨上重要形态学标志（如横突或关节突）的骨嵴或骨板。它们在整个脊柱中通常表现出一定的序列变化。一致的术语有助于对这种变化进行形态学描述，并识别可能具有分类学意义且可作为系统发育特征的模式。这样一种术语是为蜥臀目恐龙设计的，也已应用于主龙形类的其他成员。在此，该术语首次应用于蜥蜴（有鳞目）。可能由于与蜥臀目恐龙相比它们通常体型较小，蜥蜴的椎板发育较差。在这个类群中，一些椎板无法识别，而其他一些则需要新的名称来解释基本椎体形态的差异。例如，蜥蜴科动物的横突和副突融合成一种称为联合突的结构，这就需要为横突和副突椎板创造新的术语“联合突椎板”。对一些蜥蜴科物种中椎板的出现情况和序列变化的评估表明，一些椎板在个体发育过程中全程发育，或仅出现在大型物种中，而其他椎板的分布在未来可能被证明具有分类学意义。
