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Thank you for the attentive revisions and detailed Rebuttal.
I think you've done a good job responding to reviews and improving the manuscript accordingly. On "SE codes", I leave this up to the authors- I am not familiar with them and it sounds like the authors' justification for omitting them is OK. The other deviations from reviewers' suggestions, such as not adding a disarticulated skull, are acceptable. Well done!
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Michael Wink, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
We have two final, very supportive reviews for the manuscript, both of which simply request presentational changes on the wording and another proofreading. These are truly helpful. Please make amendments accordingly and detail them point-by-point in your Rebuttal. There will be no need for re-review. Thank you!!
No comment.
No comment.
No comment.
The authors have crafted a paper that is well written, well delimited, and well illustrated. It makes a small but significant contribution to our understanding of skeletal development in squamates, particularly in this poorly-studied clade. All of my suggested edits below are intended to slightly improve the writing or suggest more appropriate terminology. Otherwise, nicely done!
Line 13: change ‘on’ to ‘of’
14: change to ‘One such group is anguimorphs,…’
15: change ‘described’ to ‘describe’ (keep present tense throughout)
16: delete ‘species of’
17: delete ‘lizard, delete second comma, change ‘observed’ to ‘observe’, delete ‘a’ and ‘that’
18: change ‘concerned’ to ‘in’
19: delete second ‘the’
20: change ‘described’ to ‘describe’
22: delete ‘being’
23: remove hyphen
27: delete ‘the’
28: change ‘rich’ to ‘reach’
29: insert ‘relative’ before ‘importance’
34: delete second and third commas
37: change ‘that’ to ‘the’
39: delete ‘currently’ and ‘of squamates’
40: delete ‘despite the great increase in our knowledge in recent years,’
43: change ‘are’ to ‘is’ and ‘include’ to ‘includes’
44: change comma to colon and delete ‘including for example’
45: here and elsewhere, insert comma after ‘e.g.’; change first comma to semicolon
46: change third comma to semicolon
47: change ‘or’ to ‘and’
50: delete ‘the alligator lizard’
55: delete ‘lizard’
57: Nicolas, 1904 is not in lit cite
58: change ‘buds’ to ‘bud’
65: change ‘aimed to’ to ‘here’
67: change ‘are’ to ‘is’
73-75: change sentence to ‘This study is based on five perinatal slow worms and 33 embryos dissected out of 7-9 ethanol-preserved females (the mother is not known in three embryos).’
75: delete ‘all’ and capitalize ‘these’
78: change first part of line to ‘morphology (Sos, 2011), and locality when known’
102: insert ‘the’ before ‘four’
109: change ‘provided’ to ‘provide’
119: throughout the description, I would move the figure reference(s) to the beginning of the section so readers know when to look while they’re reading that section
121: change ‘posteriorly’ to ‘posterior’
135: insert ‘and’ before ‘presence’
139: change ‘reached’ to ‘reaching’, insert comma after ‘jaw’
147: insert ‘on’ after ‘takes’
150: change ‘started’ to ‘are’
154: insert ‘their’ after ‘only’
169: replace ‘—’ with a semicolon
170: delete ‘also’ and comma
174: change ‘anteriorly’ to ‘anterior’
183: delete ‘being’
190: change ‘is composed of’ to ‘presents’
196: change ‘which’ to ‘that’
201: delete ‘of’ and change ‘approximately’ to ‘approximating’
208: delete ‘the’
214: change ‘simple’ to ‘simply’, delete second comma
224: change ‘in’ to ‘at’
225: delete first ‘dorsally’
228: delete ‘with its’ and ‘end’, change ‘posterodorsal’ to ‘posterodorsally’
230: insert ‘there is’ before ‘no’, delete ‘can be’
231: delete ‘observed’
233: insert ‘The’ at beginning of sentence
235: delete ‘in the’ and ‘part’, change ‘anterior’ to ‘anteriorly’
237: insert ‘the’ after ‘into’ and change ‘otooccipital’ to ‘otooccipitals’
241: change ‘neonatal lizard’ to ‘neonate’
243: delete ‘bone’
249: ‘The posterior margin of the bone…’ – which bone?
253: insert ‘The’ at beginning of sentence
259: change ‘which’ to ‘that’
262: delete ‘to it’
267: delete second ‘the’ and change ‘Meckel’ to ‘Meckel’s’
269: delete second ‘the’, change ‘Meckel’ to ‘Meckel’s’, delete ‘also’
270: insert ‘mandibular’ before ‘bones’, delete ‘forming the mandible’, change ‘other than that’ to ‘otherwise’
274: change ‘was observed’ to ‘occurs’
275: change ‘were’ to ‘are’
276: insert ‘first’ before ‘ceratobranchial’, change ‘was’ to ‘is’
277: change ‘ossified’ to ‘calcified’ (only the first ceratobranchial ossifies in the squamate hyoid; everything else calcifies), change ‘ossifications’ to ‘calcifications’
289: change ‘dorsally’ to ‘dorsal’
292: insert ‘the’ before ‘very’
305: delete ‘relatively’
307: change ‘things’ to ‘features’, insert comma after ‘preservation’
308: delete second ‘in’ and change ‘general’ to ‘generally’
310: delete ‘in squamates’
312: delete ‘that are often’
313: insert comma after ‘tables’
314: change ‘of’ to ‘from’ and ‘to’ to ‘in’
315: change ‘than’ to ‘from’
316: change ‘of’ to ‘from’
324-325: delete ‘which is far less light permeable than the eggshell.’
329: delete ‘, for example,’ and comma after ‘stomach’
332: change ‘was’ to ‘is’
333: change ‘was’ to ‘is’
334: delete ‘The’ and capitalize ‘embryonic’
337: delete ‘it’
349: change ‘Such’ to ‘This’
353: insert comma after ‘fragilis’, rearrange to ‘an almost universal feature’
355: delete ‘apparent’
366: change ‘such a’ to ‘this’
371: change ‘parietal’ to ‘parietals’
389: change second ‘the’ to ‘a’
393: change first ‘are’ to ‘is’
398: change ‘tends to’ to ‘would’
399-400: delete ‘(at least in currently studied species)’
408: insert comma after ‘viviparity’, change ‘potential’ to ‘potentially’
Conclusions: too many sentences are recycled verbatim from earlier in the text; please paraphrase more
412: delete ‘may’ and change ‘represent’ to ‘represents’
413: hyphenate ‘densely sampled’
420: insert ‘have’ before ‘they’
421: insert comma after ‘)’ and ‘and’ before ‘the’
423: remove hyphen from ‘well-ossified’
426: delete ‘the
427: change ‘rich’ to ‘reach’
570: make ‘A’ lower case
Figure 5 caption: please specify which views these are
Figures 7-8: why not label scleral ossicles?
Figure 8 caption: squamosal is missing
Figure 10, 12 and 13 captions: ‘cb’ should be ‘first ceratobranchial’
This manuscript entitled " Embryonic development and perinatal skeleton in a limbless, viviparous lizard, Anguis fragilis (Squamata: Anguimorpha) " by Tomasz Skawiński, Grzegorz Skórzewski and Bartosz Borczyk described the external morphology of the several developmental stages of the embryos, particular aspects of their skeletal development and discuss the important aspects of the intraspecific variation in individual development of the enigmatic limbless lizard – A. fragilis.
Since there is no any available information about the early development of this lizard and the variation in individual development have not analyzed so in detail, this is a potentially important contribution.
Therefore, I believe this study is worth publishing for PeerJ, although there is room for improvement, in particular, in accuracy of morphological description and in discussion.
As I am not a native English speaker I do not presume to evaluate English, however, the text contains misprints which should be double checked.
I am opposed to anonymity in the review process and choose to identify myself as Oleksandr Yaryhin.
Minor comments
Line 32 and 43
Wrong citation. Do you mean this one? Uetz P, Freed P, Hošek J, eds. 2021
Line 78
..in areas… Please add information about the localities
Line 81
…date of collection of the mother… Please provide information about the exact dates and information about the number of embryos from each female.
Use term female instead of mother.
Line 83
… from the Standard Event System… Hereinafter it is not clear exactly which Standart Events (SE) do you use. Please add SE codes.
Hereinafter, as you were guided by the SE System, when describing the characteristics of the embryo, you should also indicate the SE code or assign a new one if the character is new.
Line 98
…alcian blue… Alcian blue solution has decalcifying effect which could cause artificial “variation” in the pattern of ossification.
Line 103
…did not bond to the cartilage…
Actually, your figures 4-8 indicate that the cartilage is well visible.
Line 109
…of the “external osteology” of a …
Better to use term – dermal ossifications or bones
Line 118
Embryo morphology
I suggest to rename into – External anatomy of the embryos
Line 119
Stage 1.
As you do not have each developmental stage to make a classical staging table, thus prior to the description of the stages provide the reader with the information, that your «stages» are not equal to the calssical staging system. I would also recommend to replase here the term «stage» with the term - «developmental state».
… neuropore is closed…
Hereinafter, as you were guided by the SE System, when describing the characteristics of the embryo, you should also indicate the SE code or assign a new one if the character is new.
Line 121
Please delete word relatively. Otherwise add something to compare with.
Line 131
…greatest variability in morphological traits… More information is needed here. Where possible, please also provide reader with the measurements.
Line 135
…presence of the hemipenes… The figure is not iformative, please add picture for comparison. Moreover, it could be sexual dimorphism.
Line 140
… is entirely cartilaginous (Fig. 4).
Better to say that there are no evidences of the bone mineralization at this stage. Because the bone could be present without mineralization’s, what also could be a result of a long-term preservation and also due to the Alcian blue staining.
Line 143
The mesencephalon becomes relatively smaller but …
The brain cannot become smaller, it can be that it is less prominent.
Line 165
If possible, I would suggest to disarticulate one skull and to make one figure with all separated bones from one side of the skull in lateral view. This will greatly improve the perception of your description. From the current illustration, many important features are not well visible.
Line 302
…suggest that the developmental sequences are similar…
Here it would be great to show the comparisons between the species in tabular form
Lines 312-347.
Apparently, this is the most important finding in the current study. I would highly recommend to give more information about the differences between the embryos into the result part. It is definitely necessary to add the table about the size characteristics of the embryos from each female.
This also should be somehow included to the title, for attracting broader audience to your research.
see above
see above
see above
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