Understanding how crested and marbled newt embryos develop inside the egg is critical for my research. During this period, body shape is determined, hybrid unfitness would be expected to reveal itself, and half of the embryos are killed by a balanced lethal system! In a paper published in Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution, led by my postdoc Tijana Vučić, we present a ‘staging table’ for crested newt embryonic development. A staging table is basically a summary of embryonic development, in which this continuous process is partitioned into a certain number of stages, based on outside appearance. We focus on a single crested newt species: the Balkan crested newt, Triturus ivanbureschi. Our new crested newt staging table serves as a baseline against which we can compare the embryonic development of individuals that belong to another Triturus species, that are hybrid, or that express arrested development due to the balanced lethal system. Take a look, the pictures and movies are gorgeous! You can download a high resolution PDF version of the poster below here.

Reference: Vućič, T., Drobnjaković, M., Ajduković, M., Bugarčić, M., Wielstra, B., Ivanović, A., Cvijanović, A. (2024). A staging table of Balkan crested newt embryonic development to serve as a baseline in evolutionary developmental studies. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 342(7): 465-482.

This work was supported by the Serbian Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation (grants nos. 451-03-47/2023-01/200007, 451-03-47/2023-01/200178, 451-03-847/2021-14/2830), the Dutch Research Council – NWO (ENW-M1 grant OCENW.M20.090), and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. [802759]).