title: Bilaterally symmetric Fourier approximations of the skull outlines of temnospondyl amphibians and their bearing on shape comparison.
abstract: Present work illustrates a scheme of quantitative description of the shape of the skull outlines of temnospondyl amphibians using bilaterally symmetric closed Fourier curves. Some special points have been identified on the Fourier fits of the skull outlines, which are the local maxima, or minima of the distances from the centroid of the points at the skull outline. These points denotes break in curvature of the outline and their positions can be compared to differentiate the skull shapes. The ratios of arc-lengths of the posterior and lateral outline of 58 temnospondyl skulls have been plotted to generate a triaguarity series of the skulls. This series grades different families, some of their genera and species as well as some individuals according to their posterior and lateral skull length ratios. This model while comparing different taxa, takes into account the entire arc-length of the outline of the temnospondyl skulls, and does not depend on few geometric or biological points used by earlier workers for comparing skull shapes.
authors.affiliation: Geological Studies Unit, Physics and Earth Science Division, Indian Statistical Institute, 203, BT Road, Kolkata 700 108, India. dhurjati@isical.ac.in
authors.forename: Dhurjati P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Sengupta
authors.forename: Debapriya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sengupta
authors.forename: Parthasarathi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ghosh
mesh_terms: D000663:Amphibians / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005580:Fossils; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D010802:Phylogeny; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology*