Leukocyte differential counts and morphology from twelve European lizards

Abstract

The present study reports the morphology of leukocytes of 12 European lacertid lizards (Podarcis sicula, P. tiliguerta, P. melisellensis, P. bocagei, P. muralis, Algyroides nigropunctatus, Lacerta viridis, L. bilineata, L. trilineata, L. oxycephala, Timon lepidus, and Zootoca vivipara) stained using May–Grünwald/Giemsa method. The morphology of white blood cells was very similar among species, suggesting a relative morphological uniformity within the lacertid lizards. For six species (i.e. P. sicula, P. tiliguerta, P. melisellensis, P. bocagei, P. muralis, and A. nigropunctatus), we determined the leukocyte differential counts, which may be considered representative of the normal values of the corresponding populations. These results may be useful either in clinical investigation to detect pathologies in wild individuals, as in management and conservation projects to assess the general health conditions of natural wild lizard populations.

Keywords:

• Lacertidae
• leukocyte morphology
• leukocyte differential count
• Haemogregarines

Acknowledgements

We thank Luca Cavigioli, Mario Pikalik, Alessandra Binada for the help during field work, and Corrado Guzzanti, and Dr Jeffrey Lebowski for his helpful suggestions on a previous version of the manuscript. We also thank four anonymous referees for their useful comments to a previous version of the manuscript.