Meeting Abstract
The presence of venom and its associated delivery structures has been demonstrated broadly across the cartilaginous and ray-finned fishes. No studies have explored the evolution of envenomed structures across the ray-finned and cartilaginous fish trees of life. Thus, we will document the diversity of envenomed structures across cartilaginous and ray-finned fishes and explore the evolution of these features in a phylogenetic context. A densely sampled, multi locus (nuclear and mitochondrial) and temporal phylogenetic hypothesis of fishes will be used to inform lineage diversification and character evolution studies. Each clade of venomous fishes will be identified using ancestral states reconstruction, and the diversity and biology of each clade and its associated venoms will be discussed. The potential impact of the evolution of venom on the inferred patterns of diversification among some groups will also be explored.
