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Changing Circumstances and Diets
Published in Christopher Cumo, Ancestral Diets and Nutrition, 2020
British anthropologist Mary Douglas Leakey (1913–1996) complicated matters in 1959, discovering at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania the first specimen of what is now classified Paranthropus boisei, a contemporary of Australopithecus and early Homo.31 She found the remains among eggshells and bones of several animals, including mice (Mus species), rats (Cricetomys species), frogs (species in the order Anura), tortoises (species in the family Testudinidae), snakes (species in the suborder Serpentes), lizards (species in the order Squamata), birds (species in the class Aves), antelopes (species in the family Bovidae), and boars (Sus scrofa).32P. boisei’s large teeth capable of crushing nuts, seeds, and other hard materials led to the nickname “Nutcracker Man.”33Paranthropus’ dietary breadth, although the range is debated, focused attention on omnivory and eclecticism rather than carnivory.34
Salamanders and caecilians, neglected from the chemical point of view
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2022
Isadora Alves de Vasconcelos, Jéssica Oliveira de Souza, Jessica Schneider de Castro, Carlos José Correia de Santana, Ana Carolina Martins Magalhães, Mariana de Souza Castro, Osmindo Rodrigues Pires Júnior
The Amphibia class has three living orders: Anura, Caudata, and Gymnophiona. Anura (frogs and toads) has worldwide distribution occurring in all continents except Antarctica, with more than 8000 species distributed and 56 families (Frost 2021). Frogs and toads live in aquatic and terrestrial habitats from lowlands to mountaintops but excluded from estuarine and marine habitats. More than a half of all described species live in the tropics, especially in New Word. Anatomically, frogs and toads have tailless bodies, flat heads, big mouths; and long, muscular hindlimbs associated with jumping (Duellman et al.1994).
Peptidomic analysis in the discovery of therapeutically valuable peptides in amphibian skin secretions
Published in Expert Review of Proteomics, 2019
J. Michael Conlon, Milena Mechkarska, Jérôme Leprince
At the time of writing, the order Anura (frogs and toads) contains 7144 well-characterized species [23] so that the total number of peptides with biological activity present in their skin secretions is enormous. Clearly, methods are needed for the rapid and relatively inexpensive screening of secretions in order to identify components with potential therapeutic relevance. Peptidomic analysis involving fractionation by reversed-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) followed by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry has proved to be effective in this regard.