Interesting. They were expecting the additional diversity of the food web in these areas to lead to the snakes evolving more universally deadly venom.
I think it stands to reason that in an environment with a large variety of food the snake would develop some type of preference or be limited by their own capabilities to hunt certain prey. The venom is tailored to have the strongest effect on the prey most likely to be caught.
A diverse biome could create a larger potential for diverse feeding habits, but who’s to say snakes don’t just prefer eating birds or whatever when they have the freedom to choose which prey they value most?
Very cool study, I’ll be interested to see what comes from this
Interesting. They were expecting the additional diversity of the food web in these areas to lead to the snakes evolving more universally deadly venom.
I think it stands to reason that in an environment with a large variety of food the snake would develop some type of preference or be limited by their own capabilities to hunt certain prey. The venom is tailored to have the strongest effect on the prey most likely to be caught.
A diverse biome could create a larger potential for diverse feeding habits, but who’s to say snakes don’t just prefer eating birds or whatever when they have the freedom to choose which prey they value most?
Very cool study, I’ll be interested to see what comes from this