Anurans including frogs and toads exhibit an ilium that is often regarded as taxonomically diagnostic. The ilium, one of the three paired bones that make up the pelvic girdle, has been important in the fossil record for identifying anuran morphotypes. Osteological collections for Australian frogs are rare in herpetological museums, and skeletonizing whole-bodied specimens requires destroying soft tissue morphology which is valuable to anuran specialists working on living species. Computed tomography scans provide the opportunity to study anuran osteology without the loss of soft tissues. Our study, based on microcomputed tomography scans of extant Australian frogs from the public repository Morphosource and from museum collections focuses on the morphological differences between Australian frogs at the familial and generic levels using geometric morphometrics to compare the diagnostic shape of the ilium. Principal component analysis (PCA) and canonical variate analysis (CVA) were conducted to assess differences in the ilium between supraspecific groups of Australian frogs. The canonical variates analysis accurately predicted group membership (i.e., the correct family) with up to 76.2% success for cross-validated predictions and 100% of original group predictions. While the sample was limited to familial and generic level analyses, our research shows that ilial morphology in Australian frogs is taxonomically informative. This research provides a guide for identifying Australian anurans, including fossils, as well as new information relevant to considerations about their phylogenetic relationships, and the potential use of the fossil record to enhance efforts to conserve threatened living frog species.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚青蛙 ilia 变异的几何形态分析和分类学解释

包括青蛙和蟾蜍在内的无尾目动物具有髂骨，通常被认为具有分类学诊断价值。髂骨是构成骨盆带的三对骨头之一，在化石记录中对于识别无尾动物形态类型非常重要。澳大利亚青蛙的骨学收藏在爬行动物学博物馆中很少见，而对全身标本进行骨骼化需要破坏软组织形态，这对于研究活体物种的无尾动物专家来说很有价值。计算机断层扫描提供了在不损失软组织的情况下研究无尾动物骨学的机会。我们的研究基于来自公共存储库 Morphosource 和博物馆收藏的现存澳大利亚青蛙的微计算机断层扫描，重点关注澳大利亚青蛙在家族和通用水平上的形态差异，使用几何形态测量学来比较髂骨的诊断形状。进行主成分分析（PCA）和典型变量分析（CVA）来评估澳大利亚青蛙超种群体之间髂骨的差异。典型变量分析准确地预测了群体成员资格（即正确的家庭），交叉验证预测的成功率高达 76.2%，原始群体预测的成功率为 100%。虽然样本仅限于家族和通用水平分析，但我们的研究表明澳大利亚青蛙的髂形态具有分类学信息。这项研究为识别澳大利亚无尾目动物（包括化石）提供了指南，并提供了有关其系统发育关系的新信息，以及化石记录的潜在用途，以加强保护受威胁的活青蛙物种的努力。