© Firenze University Press www.fupress.com/ah Acta Herpetologica 5(2): 245-253, 2010 Incomplete albinism in Discoglossus pictus (Otth, 1837) Filippo Spadola1, Gianni Insacco2 1 Laboratorio di Metodologie veterinarie applicate alla Fauna esotica e selvatica, Dipartimento di Sci- enze sperimentali e Biotecnologie applicate, Facoltà di Medicina veterinaria di Messina, Polo universi- tario SS. Annunziata I-98128, Messina, Italy. Corresponding author. E-mail: fspadola@unime.it 2 Centro regionale Recupero fauna selvatica e tartarughe marine - Fondo Siciliano per la Natura e Museo civico di Storia naturale, via Generale Girlando 2, I-97013 Comiso (RG), Italy. E-mail: gian- niinsacco@virgilio.it Submitted on: 2009, 31th December; revised on: 2010, 26th August; accepted on: 2010, 20th September. Abstract. The authors present an incomplete albinism case in a Discoglossus pictus subject found in Sicily. This is the first note for Italian territory, the second for the species and the third for Discoglossus genus. Keywords. Discoglossus pictus, albinism, Alitidae, Discoglossidae, amphibians. Discoglossus pictus belongs to the Alitidae family, previously called Discoglossidae (Lanza et al., 2007, 2009). Two genera belong to Alitidae: Alytes (present in Morocco, Ibe- rian Peninsula, France, transalpine Switzerland, Southern Belgium, Southern Netherlands and Western Germany) and Discoglossus (distributed in Maghreb Africa, Southern Europe and Israel) (Table 1). Discoglossus pictus is a western mediterranean species, distributed in Sicily, Malta and Gozo Island, Tunis, including Galita Island, Northern Algeria. It is also a natural- ized species in Northern Spain and Southern France (Lanza et al., 2007, 2009). Discoglos- sus pictus presents three different dorsal colourations: a “spotted” phenotype with brown, brown-greenish, brown-yellowish or greenish stains on brown-reddish or brown-yellowish background, a “striped” phenotype characterized by a median band and two lateral bright bands, coupled with numerous spots similar to the previous phenotype, and a third “con- color” phenotype, brown, brown-reddish or reddish normally uniform or with small and shed dark sketches (Lanza et al., 2007, 2009). As a premise, it should be remembered that albinism is due to a blockade of melano- phores metabolic pathway leading to melanine synthesis (Lanza et al., 2007, 2009). If meta- bolic alteration impacts skin and eye melanophores, complete albinism occurs; incomplete albinism occurs when metabolic alteration impacts only skin or eye melanophores (Lanza et al., 2007, 2009). Partial albinism, instead, consists of the presence of achromic areas in more or less wide and more or less numerous portions of the skin (Lanza et al., 2007, 2009). 246 F. Spadola and G. Insacco In Amphibians there are a number of reports of complete and incomplete albinism. Thus it has been mandatory to concentrate bibliographic research on albinism cases in Alitidae family (Table 1). For Discoglossus genus, albinism records are extremely rare. For instance, in 1879, Lataste claims a lack of albino Discoglossus pictus to complete its researches on tadpoles pigmentation (Lataste, 1879). In the month of June 2009, in Ragusa province (Italy), precisely in Marina di Ragusa, few meters over the sea level and approximately 500 meters from the sea, an albino Dis- coglossus pictus individual was found. The animal was in a small lake rich in Nymphaea alba, in a big garden of a private owner. In the same area many subjects of the same species were present, all belonging to the spotted phenotype (Fig. 2 C). Studied subject jumped among other presenting a uniform white skin coloration with black eyes (Fig. 1; Fig. 2 A, B). It was a sub-adult (5 cm body length), incomplete albino individual, extreme- Table 1. Summary of species of the family of Alitidae and reports of albinism. Fig. 1. Discoglossus pictus with albinism incomplete. Left view. 247Incomplete albinism in Discoglossus pictus ly vital and in apparently good health status (Fig. 1; Fig. 2 A, B). Dimension and actual lack of secondary sexual characters did not allow us to determine gender, but we expect it was a female. The animal is still alive and it is the first case of Discoglossus pictus incom- plete albino on the Italian territory. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We wish to thank: Pasquale Spadola, Salvatore Viola, Edoardo Razzetti, Annalisa Zaccaroni, Rafael Marquez and Iñigo Martinez-Solano for their cooperation. 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