Atlas of Xenopus Development

Rating:
Summary: some good images, but lacks comprehensiveness
Review: Xenopus biologists have few resources available to them that illustrate the internal anatomy of developing embryos. Peter Hausen and Metta Riebesell published a stunning first attempt at producing such a resource in 1991, now out-of-print. This work focused largely on early stages of oogenesis and development.
The new volume by Bernardini et al. is the latest attempt to produce a detailed anatomic description of early Xenopus development. It contains a blend of scanning electron micrographs depicting external morphology and plastic sections- internal. The quality of the SEMs is very high, and that of the plastic sections reasonable (not to the standard of Hausen and Riebesell) despite some fixation and sectioning artifacts.
Periods of development documented include gametogenesis, fertilization, cleavage, gastrulation, neurulation and one- two- three- and five day old embryos. Approximately six to eight SEMs and sections are provided per stage.