Using Adaptive Traits in the Ear to Estimate Ecology of Early Snakes

doi:10.1017/9781108938891.018

13 - Using Adaptive Traits in the Ear to Estimate Ecology of Early Snakes

from Part IV - Neurobiological Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2022

Hongyu Yi

Edited by

David J. Gower and

Hussam Zaher

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David J. Gower: Affiliation:
Natural History Museum, London
Hussam Zaher: Affiliation:
Universidade de São Paulo

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Summary

Snakes have distinct body plans that can be traced to the origin of the clade. It remains unresolved whether ancestral snakes were adapted to terrestrial environments as burrowers, or to marine environments as swimmers. Recently, new approaches have been used to infer fossorial and aquatic specialists in the early evolution of snakes, using virtual CT models of the ear of fossils. This chapter reviews variation in the osseous part of the ear of major snake lineages. Vestibules are relatively large in fossorial species and small in aquatic snakes. Using quantitative analyses of bony labyrinth geometry, it has been suggested that putative stem snakes, such as Dinilysia patagonica, were fossorial. Improvements to testing correlations between bony labyrinth morphology and ecology can be made in the refinement of quantitative approaches to capturing and analysing shape variations, as well as better classifications of ecology. Using inner and middle ear morphology to improve the accuracy and precision of inferences of the ecology of the ancestral snake will depend also upon robust, well-resolved phylogenies for extinct and extant taxa, and denser taxonomic and ecomorphological sampling.

Keywords

adaptation morphology evolution sensory biology palaeontology fossils vestibule labyrinth ecology ecomorphology

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Origin and Early Evolutionary History of Snakes , pp. 271 - 293

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108938891.018 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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