The evolutionary “Big Bang” explains why snakes come in many strange varieties

The evolutionary “Big Bang” explains why snakes come in many strange varieties

Written by Jack Tamisia It was freed by Andrea Thompson

When it developed for the first time from the lizards more than 100 million years ago, snakes were eternal players wandering around the margin of ecosystems dominated by dinosaurs. But today there are about 4000 types of snakes, ranging from green Anoconda that weighs more than an adult gorilla to snakes lighter than the paper box. They are some of the most effective and diverse predators. “Snakes are really exceptional,” says Daniel Rapowski, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan.

Of nearly 25 groups of lizards that lost his legs independently, snakes are the only one that truly explodes diversity. A new study published this week in sciences Explain why: genetic data revealed this Snakes saw an explosion of adaptation about 125 million years ago– In their evolutionary history – helped them exploit multiple environmental gaps. “The paper shows that snakes are” uniqueness “that changed the face of the earth.

To determine what distinguishes snakes from groups of lizards without legs, Rapusky and a team of researchers built an in -depth development tree. They formed their branches using genetic data from more than 1,000 types of tapes (arrangement of reptiles that include snakes and lizards) to plan how these peeled creatures change over time. Finally, they strengthened this data collection with nutritional information from approximately 70,000 lizards and individual snakes, especially alcohol -preserved samples in museum groups.

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The results showed an explosion of early adaptation, which was apparently linked to the development of specialized features. These features include chemical future structures that help identify prey with experience using the smell, heat and flexible jaws that help them swallow large meals. Some snakes have evolved in the deadly poison to hunt larger prey.

The new paper does not go out on the ends to determine any specific feature that led to the success of the snakes. He tells me that it may have been an interaction in the features that helped them hit the Grand Pride of Evolutionary Prize. “Snakes are successful due to multiple adaptations [such as] “Many lizards without legs have one or two of these snake features, but they were not successful.” It cited a range of vubs that have an elongated body and a flexible gate, but it has never varied in more than one handful of species.

Rapowski agrees that the adoption of a set of specialized qualities is likely to help the development of the snake. Based on the evolutionary study tree, snakes appear to have evolved to about three times faster than lizards. “The rate in which snakes have evolved are new features and develop new types of meals have been mainly expelled,” says Raboski. “The lizards roam the bike during snakes on a bullet train.”

Such a rapid development of snakes may allow more environmental gaps than lizards after the extinction of the catastrophic mass, which occurred 66 million years before its fate, several groups of reptiles, including unclear dinosaurs. This diversity is still reflected in snake meals today. Most living lizards stick to insects or other small arthropods; Snakes are generally more adventurous and animals that range from rodents and birds to kangaroo and crocodiles.

Although snakes collectively have evolved various tastes, many species are very specialized to target specific prey. These include the types of snakes, which have evolved to drill prey and types of marine snakes, which swim with a Prague tail and eat a snack on prey like coral reef fish. Other types swallow all bird eggs. Some even consume the harmful wages that dare a few other types of eating. Most lizards specialize in much lower and simply eat anything that does not find the invertebrates small enough to suit its mouth.

Rapusky and his authors describe the explosion of the evolutionary innovation, which the snake’s development began to be “unique in the total revolution.” Like the big evolutionary explosion, these rare events occur when a group of living organisms quickly diversified into a variety of new species in the eye of the eye, with geological standards. The sudden explosion of blooming vegetable diversity during the Cretaceous period is another example of this phenomenon, which Charles Darwin described as a “hateful mystery.”

It is just another example, says Raboski, how “these big bangs of development are very important to the history of life on Earth.”