Morphological difference of populations of Central Asian tortoise Agrionemys horsfieldii (GRAY 1844) distributed in Kashkadarya region

Abstract This article provides a classification of morphological features of the Central Asian tortoise species Agrionemys horsfieldii (Gray 1844) distributed in Kashkadarya region. The data presented in the article are based on research materials conducted in Kashkadarya region in 2019-2022. Eleven sites were selected for the study, including biogeocinoses of deserts (260-600m above sea level), foothills(800-1500m above sea level) and mountains(1800-2200m above sea level). The reason, it is expedient to study morphological changes resulting from ecological adaptation in biogeocenoses, because a particular ecological environment leads to the encounter of similar individuals between subspecies. The differences between the morphological characteristics of the samples (n=204) taken over the whole region were then examined by means of mathematical modeling of pholidosis and morphological features. The aim of the study was to study the morphological differences of tortoises found in Kashkadarya region and to distinguish them as different subspecies or one subspecies. During the study, individuals belonging to the genus Agrionemys were returned in 8 of the 11 areas. When we looked at the carpases of A. horsfieldii (Gray 1844) individuals, we found that the distance difference between the 3,6,8 marginales scales was different, and we formed the W6M/W3M, W6M/W8M parameter for biostatistics from them, that this difference could determine the subspecies. And this parameter was analyzed by software XLSTAT done. Geometric morphology was then mathematically modeled using TPS until64 and TPS digetal256 software and analyzed by MorphoJ software.

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