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Evolution

Reptile sex determination goes wild

Nature volume 523, pages 43–44 (2015)Cite this article

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Wild populations of an Australian lizard have sex chromosomes and also exhibit temperature-controlled sexual development, providing insight into how these two sex-determining mechanisms may evolve back and forth. See Letter p.79

Vertebrate sex determination is getting interesting. On page 79 of this issue, Holleley et al.1 report elaborate field and laboratory studies on an egg-laying Australian lizard, Pogona vitticeps, and reveal that its sex is determined both by its complement of chromosomes and by the temperature at which its eggs are incubated. Earlier reports2,3had hinted at the possibility of combined genotypic and environmental sex determination in some lizards, but it had never before been convincingly reported in the wild.

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Figure 1: Pogona vitticeps.

Arthur Georges

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and the Department of Integrative Biology, James J. Bull is at the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.,

    James J. Bull

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  1. James J. Bull
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Correspondence to James J. Bull.

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Bull, J. Reptile sex determination goes wild. Nature 523, 43–44 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/523043a

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