About 100 million years ago, the world before snakes was a very different world. At that time, before the snakes living in the world today, there used to be small lizards. But these same lizards, who at that time lived under the shadow of dinosaurs, were going to write a unique symbol of change and diversity. This story changed very rapidly. Lizards became legless and then thousands of snake species of today’s era flourished. Which is a wonderful story of change in the course of development.
From the very beginning, the ancestors of snakes displayed remarkable “adaptability.” They first evolved a legless body and developed a sophisticated chemical recognition system to catch prey. With time he found solutions to many challenges. But what happened after the end of the dinosaur era that caused such a rapid change and today there are 4 thousand species of snakes in the world?
A team of biologists from the University of Michigan has found the answer. In a study published in the journal Science, they have told how with rapid evolution, snakes adopted such amazing characteristics that made them a very special species compared to other reptiles.
It was not an easy task to become a legged reptile without snakes. (Symbolic photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Researchers said that snakes evolved more rapidly than lizards, due to which they went much further than other lizards. They achieved diversity, flexibility, and hunting skills that no other species did. This was the reason why they kept becoming better than other reptiles. Researchers created a family tree of snakes and lizards. For this, he made data about the genome of one thousand species of snakes, their eating habits and also studied thousands of specimens kept in the museum.
Not all legless reptiles could reach the heights that snakes did. The biggest thing in this was the flexibility and ecological diversity in the evolution of snakes. The ability to make burrows underground, to live in clean water, from oceans to oceans, made them capable of living everywhere. During their evolution, snakes adapted themselves to many important things and achieved an amazing diversity.
Snakes became capable of hunting all types of prey. They even changed their diet over time. And yet managed to establish itself as a powerful hunting animal. Researchers explained how changes in dosage helped them keep up over time.
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Tags: Amazing news, Bizarre news, OMG News, Weird news
FIRST PUBLISHED: February 24, 2024, 08:31 IST
