1988 Volume 53 Issue 2 Pages 233-239
The chromosomes of the Rainbow lizard, A. agama agama have been studied from bone marrow and testis preparations. The animal has a diploid chromosome complement of 44 with a fundamental number of 46. The karyotype bears very close relationship to that of A. atra from South Aftrica. Several spermatocytes in diakinesis and metaphase I show polyploidy which may be regular or apparent. The incidence of the regular polyploids varies from one animal to the other, although averagely about 4.8% of all cells in diakinesis are of the tetraploid origin while other ploidy levels account for 0.4%. Quadrivalents were not found in these polyploid cells and a process of endoreduplication of chromosomes without separation of sister chromatids is suggested for their origin.