New work on a 90-million-year old reptile fossil is helping scientists determine how snakes lost their limbs. The research, conducted by Mark Norell, the Macaulay Curator and chair in the Museum’s Division of Paleontology, and Hongyu Yi, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, indicates that snakes lost their legs when their ancestors evolved to live and hunt in burrows, which many snakes still do today. The findings, recently published in the journal Science Advances, show that snakes did not lose their limbs in order to live in the sea, as has been previously suggested.
The scientists used computed tomography (CT) scans to examine the bony inner ear of Dinilysia patagonica, a 2-meter (6.5-feet)-long reptile closely linked to modern snakes. These bony canals and cavities, like those in the ears of modern burrowing snakes, controlled its hearing and balance.
Researchers built 3D virtual models to compare the inner ears of the fossils with those of modern lizards and snakes and discovered a distinctive structure within the inner ear of animals that actively burrow. This shape, which may help burrowers detect prey and predators alike, is not present in modern snakes that live in water or above ground.
So I tried to recreate this, because I knew the responses would be different, and consequently realized that it’s either extremely old or faked, as Cleverbot auto-capitalizes and auto-punctuates your sentences for you if you do not. Oh well.
In light of that fact, here’s my go at cybersexing Cleverbot.
So I decided to try it
alrighty, let’s go one more step
i’M ACTUALLY CRYING.
THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY
Story of my life
that’s a first.
I LAUGHED HARDER THEN I HOULD HAVE AND I WAS IN PUBLIC
I wasn’t gonna reblog this but I lost it at the last one
