We examined a total of 51 specimens from nine clutches using in situ hybridization. Of these, 22 composed a developmental series of embryos and hatchlings (hatched at 3.75 days) collected every 8 h from 2 to 4.67 days and then every 24 h until 6 days. We compared staining results from our probe with no-probe and sense probe controls for verification that our staining was not attributable to non-specific binding of BM purple. Embryos were preserved in MEMFA (100 mMMOPS buffer, 2 mM EGTA, 1 mM MgSO4 and 3.7% formaldehyde) or 4% paraformaldehyde for 2–3 h,then dehydrated gradually into 100% methanol or 70% ethanol and stored and shipped frozen. Stored embryos were rehydrated in phosphate-buffered saline with 20% Tween 20 (six 10 min washes at room temperature,rocking) and prehybridized in hybridization buffer[50% formamide, 5× SSC (saline-sodium citrate buffer) pH 5, 50 μg/mL yeast tRNA, 50 μL/mL heparin,0.1% Tween 20 and 5% dextran sulfate] for 30 min rocking at room temperature, then 3–4 h at 65 °C. For hybridization, we incubated samples overnight at 65 °C in hybridization buffer with 0.75 ng/μL digoxigeninlabelled RNA probe. Samples were washed two times