The work was carried out in compliance with the current laws of China, and was supported by grant from Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions to Ji's group, the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (Project No. llKJB180004), Jiangsu Provincial Foundation of Natural Science (No. BK2012849) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31070339). We would like to thank Long-Hui Lin, Jian-Fang Gao, Lai-Gao Luo andYan-Fu Qu for their assistance both in the field and in the laboratory.
To test the hypothesis that the variance of incubation temperature may have constituted a significant selective force for reptilian viviparity, we incubated eggs of the slender forest skink Scincella modesta in five t...