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Posted by Jeff Schofield on March 25, 2003 at 18:04:46:
In Reply to: Consider this..... posted by chrish on March 25, 2003 at 01:35:27:
The largest "modern" snakes, in terms of evolutionary biology...are ALL snake eaters. Boids are relics and you take these out of the mix and suddenly the success of snake-eating snakes are a little more obvious. While Pitophis is an obvious exception, I suggest that systematicists could map the evolution of snakes based on prey species. The success of snake-eaters(defined by larger size)is a obvious reaction to the success of snakes in general over recent history. Are there any ENDANGERED snake-eaters? I really dont know but I would dare say I dont think so. It is significant that the further north you go the fewer snake species and snake-eaters drop off exponentially. In the tropics it is just about the opposite. Ubiquetous species such as racers have expanded on the snake-eating tolerances so it not only has little serpentine competition but realistically competes with other Taxa for food. While it is true that there are plenty of small snake-eater species...but I suggest that the evolutionary distance between their larger snake-eating relatives is closer than the distance between any 2 similar sized species that arent snake-eaters. The success of snake-eaters is hard to argue with. Again, good arguements,Jeff
