@article{334aa3e942d249478bd4f8cb8e6b75d0,
title = "Fang evolution in venomous snakes: Adaptation of 3D tooth shape to the biomechanical properties of their prey",
abstract = "Venomous snakes are among the world's most specialized predators. During feeding, they use fangs to penetrate the body tissues of their prey, but the success of this penetration depends on the shape of these highly specialized teeth. Here, we examined the evolution of fang shape in a wide range of snakes using 3D geometric morphometrics (3DGM) and cross-sectional tooth sharpness measurements. We investigated the relationship of these variables with six diet categories based on the prey's biomechanical properties, and tested for evolutionary convergence using two methods. Our results show that slender elongate fangs with sharp tips are used by snakes that target soft-skinned prey (e.g., mammals), whereas fangs become more robust and blunter as the target's skin becomes scaly (e.g., fish and reptiles) and eventually hard-shelled (e.g., crustaceans), both with and without correction for evolutionary allometry. Convergence in fang shape is present, indicating that fangs of snakes with the same diet are more similar than those of closely related species with different diets. Establishing the relationship between fang morphology and diet helps to explain how snakes became adapted to different lifestyles, while also providing a proxy to infer diet in lesser known species or extinct snakes from the fossil record.",
keywords = "3D Geometric morphometrics, convergence, dentition, diet, serpentes, tooth sharpness",
author = "Cleuren, {Silke G.C.} and Hocking, {David P.} and Evans, {Alistair R.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Karen Roberts, Jane Melville, Ricky‐Lee Erickson (Museums Victoria, Australia), Jodi Rowley, and Stephen Mahony (Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia) for giving access to specimens and approving loans for micro‐CT scanning. Thanks to the owners of the “Scan all Snakes” project on MorphoSource for granting access to the micro‐CT scans and/or 3D models we requested, Remi Ksas at VenomWorld (Paris, France) for providing shed fangs of vipers for scanning, and Marc Jones and Luke Allen for providing snake fangs sourced from Venom Supplies (Adelaide, Australia). We would like to thank Tahlia I. Pollock for discussing Rhino protocols for sharpness measurements and 3DGM landmarking. For the comparative phylogenetic analyses, we would like to thank Jonathan Chang for helping with the code. Also thanks to Douglass S. Rovinsky for help with the coding for the convergence analyses. Finally, we thank the two anonymous reviewers and the assigned Associate Editor, Dr. Antigoni Kaliontzopoulou, for providing helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript which greatly improved and clarified this manuscript. This paper is part of the Ph.D. project of SGCC funded by the Monash Graduate Scholarship (MGS) and the Monash International Tuition Scholarship. ARE was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP180101797). This project was also partly funded by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment – Equity Trustees Charitable Foundation & the Ecological Society of Australia. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Authors. Evolution {\textcopyright} 2021 The Society for the Study of Evolution. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2021",
month = jun,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1111/evo.14239",
language = "English",
volume = "75",
pages = "1377--1394",
journal = "Evolution",
issn = "1558-5646",
publisher = "John Wiley & Sons",
number = "6",
}