Promoter: Raoul Van Damme
Supervision: Eleesha Annear
Subject: Osteoderms are bony structures in the skin that can be found in a few groups of tetrapods, but most commonly in lizards. Osteoderms are hypothesized to function in various beneficial ways for lizards, including as protective armour, thermoregulation, and evaporation. However, osteoderms have been suggested to reduce flexibility during locomotion. Therefore, limiting an individual's potential to escape predators. The unique varying degree of osteoderm expression in the Cape cliff lizard, Hemicordylus capensis, allows for an opportunity to test if osteoderms influence lizard flexibility during locomotion by comparing lizards with high degree to low or no degree of osteoderm expression.
Techniques: kinematic analysis, statistics