ArticleScience advances2023
Reconstructing the origin and early evolution of the snake brain.
Article in Science advances, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Bioimaging of sense organs and the central nervous system in extant fishes and reptiles in situ: A review.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Review
- Inside the head of Crotalus durissus LINNAEUS, 1758 (Serpentes, Viperidae, Crotalinae): Macroscopic description of the brain with ontogenetic insights.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- Environmental Enrichment Increases Brain Volume in Snakes.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2025Article
- The SmARTR pipeline: A modular workflow for the cinematic rendering of 3D scientific imaging data.iScience · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Snakes represent one-eighth of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, encompassing various lifestyles, ecologies, and morphologies. However, the ecological origins and early evolution of snakes are controversial topics in biology. To address the paucity of well-preserved fossils and the caveats of osteological traits for reconstructing snake evolution, we applied a different ecomorphological hypothesis based on high-definition brain reconstructions of extant Squamata. Our predictive models revealed a burrowing lifestyle with opportunistic behavior at the origin of crown snakes, reflecting a complex ancestral mosaic brain pattern. These findings emphasize the importance of quantitatively tracking the phenotypic diversification of soft tissues-including the accurate definition of intact brain morphological traits such as the cerebellum-in understanding snake evolution and vertebrate paleobiology. Furthermore, our study highlights the power of combining extant and extinct species, soft tissue reconstructions, and osteological traits in tracing the deep evolution of not only snakes but also other groups where fossil data are scarce.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.