Chromatographic study of toad venoms for taxonomic purposes

The secretion of the parotoid glands of six species of toads of the genus Bufo has been analysed with circular chromatograpy. From the resulting bands a ≪dissimilarity matrix≫ was constructed. The numerical data, derived from a computer program, yielded a den drogram of the evolution of the analysed secretion that fits well with dendrograms obtained for the corresponding species in pre vious studies using various biological parameters. The easy-to-perform chromatographic technique described in this paper could have various biological applications.