Abstract
Summary
Nine species of lizards representing three families were used to investigate bile acid composition of the bile acid pool isolated from gallbladders. Members of the three families contained AC, CA, CDCA, DOCA, and LCA in varying proportions. Gakkonids and teiids, represented by a single species each, had quite similar bile acid spectra, with CA as the primary bile acid. This is surprising since these families have different geographic origins and are only distantly phylogenetically related. In contrast, the seven species of iguanids had AC as the primary bile acid. At both generic and species levels, the iguanids studied had quite similar bile acid spectra.
Within this group, food habits or ecologic distribution appeared to have little effect on the proportion of bile acids.
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