Meeting Abstract
Evolutionary specialisation to the environment has produced vast phenotypic diversity of across the tree of live. In particular, feeding is crucial for both survival and reproduction and therefore many animals are morphologically adapted to their diet. One of the most important feeding structures for vertebrates is the skull, which can have morphology closely adapted to diet. However, how skull morphology evolves during evolutionary diversification and repeated evolution of dietary specialization is not well known. We studied the evolution of skull morphology in snakes of the genus Tantilla. Snakes in general are ideal for studying evolution of trophic morphology because they are limbless and most specialization of the feeding apparatus involves the skull. The genus of Tantilla is particularly interesting because they have repeatedly evolved dietary specialization on well-defended arthropod prey such as scorpions and centipedes. We collected micro CT scans of skull morphology, assembled dietary data from the literature, and constructed a phylogeny for the genus using molecular data. We then use these data to study the pattern and tempo of the evolution of feeding and skull morphology. Ultimately, our study will reveal how osteological change and dietary specialization can contribute to the evolution of phenotypic diversity.
