Greene H W, Burghardt G M
Science. 1978 Apr 7;200(4337):74-7. doi: 10.1126/science.635575.
Comparative analyses of behavior have an underappreciated potential for revealing the role of ethoecological factors in the origins of higher taxa. Twenty-seven species (13 genera) in the advanced family Colubridae exhibited 19 patterns of coil application; one or two patterns were usually consistent within a genus. Forty-eight species (26 genera) in the primitive families Acrochordidae, Aniliidae, Boidae, and Xenopeltidae usually used a single pattern, despite differences in age, size, shape, habitat, and diet. This implies the shared retention of an action pattern used by their common ancestor no later than the early Paleocene. Constriction must have been used as a prey-killing tactic very early in the history of snakes and might have been a behavioral "key innovation" in the evolution of their unusual jaw mechanism.
行为的比较分析在揭示行为生态学因素在高等分类单元起源中的作用方面具有未得到充分重视的潜力。进步的游蛇科中的27个物种（13个属）展现出19种盘绕方式；一个属内通常有一两种方式是一致的。原始的瘰鳞蛇科、管蛇科、蟒科和闪鳞蛇科中的48个物种（26个属）通常采用单一方式，尽管在年龄、大小、形状、栖息地和食性上存在差异。这意味着它们共同祖先至少在古新世早期就使用的一种行为模式被共同保留了下来。绞杀肯定在蛇类历史的早期就已被用作一种捕杀猎物的策略，并且可能是其独特颌骨机制进化过程中的一个行为“关键创新”。
