Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Feb 28.
Published in final edited form as: Reprod Toxicol. 2017 Mar 4;69:174–186. doi: 10.1016/j.reprotox.2017.03.003

Figure 1. Discovery from Natural Selection: Thalidomide-induced limb deformities in D. rerio and G. gallus in comparison with forelimb atrophy in A. means, R. cucullatus, and T. rex.

Figure 1

Limb deformities (phocomelia) can be observed with exposure to thalidomide in (A, B) D. rerio, (C, D) G. gallus, and humans. In the course of evolution, a similar developmental outcome (forelimb atrophy) is stabilized to better adapt to ecological niches in (E) two-toed amphiuma (Amphiuma means), a native species of salamanders in North Carolina; (F) flightless birds, such as the dodos (Raphus cucullatus); and (G) the family Tyrannosauridae and subfamily Carnotaurinae of theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex (Guinard 2015). The images were used with permission of (A–D) the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Ito et al. 2010), and (F) Michael Hanson (Yale University); and taken in (E) the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, and (G) the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.