Viper-mimicking snake from Asia is a unique branch in the reptile evolutionary tree

The evolutionary historical past of the mock viper, a mildly venomous, extensively distributed Asian snake that mimics extremely venomous vipers for self-defense, has been solved. The mock viper represents a unique department within the tree of lifetime of snakes, and therefore, it has been allotted into its personal new household named Psammodynastidae. The research is revealed in Scientific Studies.

This small, feisty snake has lengthy offered a puzzle to evolutionary scientists on account of its unresolved evolutionary historical past. To resolve the puzzle, the researchers analyzed DNA sequences of greater than 4,500 genes and several other dozen high-resolution micro-computed tomographic scans.

“Mock vipers are a part of the superfamily Elapoidea, a serious group of snakes to which one-fifth of world serpent variety belongs. Evolutionary diversification inside this superfamily occurred very quickly roughly 50 million years in the past. Fast evolutionary permutations are in all probability essentially the most difficult evolutionary state of affairs for a geneticist or evolutionary biologist to resolve,” says the lead researcher Sunandan Das from the College of Helsinki.

Mock vipers not solely appear like tree-dwelling vipers but additionally act like them. Intriguingly, they’ve a faux “fang” within the entrance of their mouth, which fools a predator into pondering that they possess venom fangs throughout an open-mouthed menace show. Nevertheless, there’s additionally an precise fang at the back of the jaw, which carries a weak venom efficient solely on their lizard prey. The Elapoidea superfamily has a number of snake households with varied forms of venom and fangs, for instance cobras and mambas.

One other fully new family-level lineage, Micrelapidae, inside Elapoidea was found in 2023 by Das and Professor Juha Merilä.

“The invention of a brand new household of any vertebrate animals is surprisingly uncommon, an virtually once-in-a-century phenomenon. It is a lifetime achievement for an evolutionary biologist. You hardly ever, if ever, see descriptions of complete new households of well-studied vertebrate animals anymore,” says Das.

The inference of the phylogenetic place of mock vipers, together with that of different elapoid snakes, will pave the best way for a significantly better understanding of snake venom fang origin and evolution. Lengthy, distinctive branches within the phylogeny, like that of mock vipers, include a excessive diploma of evolutionary distinctiveness, an index utilized by biologists for prioritizing conservation. Therefore, reinstating the mock viper or Psammodynastes into its personal “dynasty” additionally serves an vital conservation objective.