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Fig. 5 | BMC Evolutionary Biology

Fig. 5

From: What makes a fang? Phylogenetic and ecological controls on tooth evolution in rear-fanged snakes

Fig. 5

a-b Diet connectivity graphs for 124 species for which we quantified fang phenotype. Colored circles represent species (grey and black circles represent non-Colubriform species), and each species is connected to the diet items that it consumes (open circles with text labels). Line thickness represents relative importance of each diet item to the species. a Species’ nodes are colored by family. Colubrid (dipsadine, colubrine, natricine) snakes show connections to every diet category. b Colors correspond to the species’ score on dentition PC1, with higher scores being more viper-like (fewer maxillary teeth; blue) and lower scores representing species with many maxillary teeth (red). Reduced-maxilla phenotypes (blue) are clustered around vertebrate prey items, while intermediate phenotypes connect to nearly every diet category. Diet item abbreviations: BrdE = bird eggs, Brd = birds, Mamm = mammals, Amph = amphibians, Rep = reptiles, RepE = reptile eggs, Fish = fishes, Arth = arthropods, Ann = annelids, Moll = molluscs. c Representative NE/NV colubriform maxillary phenotypes with associated main prey items. Though skinks (lizards) are not included as a diet category in A & B, we show a representative to highlight the unique morphology associated with eating hard-bodied lizards

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