Palaeoecological inferences for the fossil Australian snakes Yurlunggur and Wonambi (Serpentes, Madtsoiidae)
Loading...
Date
2018-02-01
Authors
Palci, Alessandro
Hutchinson, Mark N
Caldwell, Michael W
Scanlon, John D
Lee, Michael S Y
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Royal Society Publishing
Rights
© 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted
use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Rights Holder
© 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society.
Abstract
Madtsoiids are among the most basal snakes, with a fossil
record dating back to the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian).
Most representatives went extinct by the end of the Eocene, but
some survived in Australia until the Late Cenozoic. Yurlunggur
and Wonambi are two of these late forms, and also the best-known
madtsoiids to date. A better understanding of the
anatomy and palaeoecology of these taxa may shed light on the
evolution and extinction of this poorly known group of snakes
and on early snake evolution in general. A digital endocast
of the inner ear of Yurlunggur was compared to those of 81
species of snakes and lizards with known ecological preferences
using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. The inner
ear of Yurlunggur most closely resembles both that of certain
semiaquatic snakes and that of some semifossorial snakes.
Other cranial and postcranial features of this snake support
the semifossorial interpretation. While the digital endocast of
the inner ear of Wonambi is too incomplete to be included in
a geometric morphometrics study, its preserved morphology
is very different from that of Yurlunggur and suggests a
more generalist ecology. Osteology, palaeoclimatic data and the
palaeobiogeographic distribution of these two snakes are all
consistent with these inferred ecological differences.
Description
Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted
use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Keywords
canonical variates analysis, principal components analysis, geometric morphometrics, labyrinth, ecology, madtsoiid snakes
Citation
Palci, A., Hutchinson, M.N., Caldwell, M.W., Scanlon, J.D. & Lee, M.S.Y., (2018). Palaeoecological inferences for the fossil Australian snakes Yurlunggur andWonambi (Serpentes, Madtsoiidae). Royal Society Open Science, 5: 172012.