Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Comiso, Italy

ABSTRACT Authors assessed the influence of age and health status on packed cell volume (PCV), plasma total protein (TPP), and glucose concentrations of loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta, brought into a Mediterranean sea turtle rescue center in Sicily. These blood parameters should be considered as the minimum database to check the health status of sea turtles. PCV and TPP are together valuable indicators of blood loss, dehydration, or dilution from lymph or extravascular fluid during blood collection. Glucose levels are important to evaluate the blood energy balance. After clinical evaluation, 38 turtles were classified as clinically healthy and 27 as unhealthy. Depending on the size of the turtle, subjects were divided in three groups: juveniles, subadults, and adults. Analysis of variance in healthy subjects showed a significant effect of age for TPP and glucose levels. Values obtained for each age group of healthy sea turtles were compared with those from unhealthy subjects by Mann-Whitney U test. Differences in PCV and TPP but not in glucose concentrations were found between unhealthy and healthy subjects. Our results suggest that these blood parameters are useful to obtain preliminary information about the condition of C. caretta. TPP, in particular, can be used to assess health status of sea turtles while taking age differences into consideration.

A new vertebrate assemblage from a karst fissure deposit of the Hyblean Plateau has been found during building works at Contrada Annunziata (Ragusa, South-eastern Sicily). The cavity was filled by reddish residual sedimets containing vertebrate fossil remains. Several skeletal elements of the dwarf elephant Elephas falconeri (Busk, 1867) and of the giant dormouse Leithia melitensis (Adams, 1863), associated with few limb bones of birds and fragments of carapace of tortouise, have been recovered. The Elephans falconeri remains are represented by teeth, vertebrae, ribs, long bones, podials, metapodials and phalanges, some of which in anatomical connection. The Leithia melitensis remains are very abundant; skull fragments, jaws, teeth, scapulae, vertebrae, ribs, long bones, podials, metapodials and phalanges are present. Dormouse remains were particularly accumulated into two spots. Taphonomic features suggest that the fissure acted as a morphologic trap, where remains accumulated afte...

The fossil vertebrates recovered from two deposits (Pocket A and B) filling a karst cavity in the Ragusa carbonatic platform at Contrada Pianetti are described. In a pocket A only Elephas cf. mnaidriensis and Leithia ex gr. melitensis-cartei are present, while pocket B yielded remains of Bos primigenius, Cervus elephas siciliae, Canis cf. lupus, Ursus cf. arctos, Erinaceus europaeus, Crocidura sp., Microtus (Terricola) ex gr. savii, an indeterminate bat, Bufo cf. viridis, Lacerta sp., Coluber viridiflavus, Testudo aff. hermanni, indeterminate snakes and birds. The fissure assemblage, although very poor, can be confidentialy attribuited to the E. mnaidriensis faunal complex wich ranged in Sicily from the late middle Pleistocene to the early late Pleistocene. The second and more diversified assemblage has some distinctive features suggesting it may represent a previously unknown phase of population of the Sicilian island wich is intermediate between the E. mnaidriensis complex and the...