Département Adaptations du Vivant, UMR 7179 C.N.R.S/M.N.H.N, Bâtiment d'Anatomie Comparée, Paris, France.
Department of Biology, Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2021 Oct;304(10):2292-2302. doi: 10.1002/ar.24686. Epub 2021 Jun 5.
Burrowing is a common behavior in vertebrates. An underground life-style offers many advantages but also poses important challenges including the high energetic cost of burrowing. Scolecophidians are a group of morphologically derived subterranean snakes that show great diversity in form and function. Although it has been suggested that leptotyphlopids and anomalepidids mostly use existing underground passageways, typhlopids are thought to create their own burrows. However, the mechanisms used to create burrows and the associated forces that animals may be able to generate remain unknown. Here, we provide the first data on push forces in scolecophidians and compare them with those in some burrowing alethinophidian snakes. Our results show that typhlopids are capable of generating higher forces for a given size than other snakes. The observed differences are not due to variation in body diameter or length, suggesting fundamental differences in the mechanics of burrowing or the way in which axial muscles are used. Qualitative observations of skull and vertebral shape suggest that the higher forces exerted by typhlopids may have impacted the evolution of their anatomy. Our results provide the basis for future studies exploring the diversity of form and function in this fascinating group of animals. Quantitative comparisons of the cranial and vertebral shape in addition to collecting functional and ecological data on a wider array of species would be particularly important to test the patterns described here.
穴居是脊椎动物的一种常见行为。地下生活方式有许多优势，但也带来了重要的挑战，包括穴居的高能耗成本。盲蛇科是一组形态衍生的穴居蛇类，在形态和功能上表现出很大的多样性。虽然有人认为细盲蛇科和异鳞蛇科主要利用现有的地下通道，但矛头蝮科被认为是自己挖掘洞穴的。然而，用于挖掘洞穴的机制以及动物可能产生的相关力量仍然未知。在这里，我们提供了盲蛇科穴居者的首次推挤力数据，并将其与一些穴居的蚺科蛇类进行了比较。我们的结果表明，对于给定的体型，矛头蝮科能够产生更高的力。观察到的差异不是由于身体直径或长度的变化，这表明在穴居的力学或轴向肌肉的使用方式上存在根本差异。对颅骨和脊椎形状的定性观察表明，矛头蝮科施加的更高力量可能对其解剖结构的进化产生了影响。我们的研究结果为未来探索这组迷人动物的形态和功能多样性提供了基础。对更广泛物种的颅骨和脊椎形状进行定量比较，以及收集功能和生态数据，将特别有助于检验这里描述的模式。
