Deconstructing the Gestalt: New concepts and tests of homology, as exemplified by a re-conceptualization of “microstomy” in squamates

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Strong, Catherine R. C.
  • Scherz, Mark D.
  • Caldwell, Michael W.

• This is the accepted (i.e., postprint; post-peer review) version of the following article: Strong, C. R. C., Scherz, M. D. & Caldwell, M. W. 2021. Deconstructing the Gestalt: new concepts and tests of homology, as exemplified by a re-conceptualization of “microstomy” in squamates. The Anatomical Record, 2021, 1–49. doi:10.1002/ar.24630. This article has been published in final form at https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.24630. This article may be used for noncommercial purposes in accordance with the Wiley Self-Archiving Policy [http://www.wileyauthors.com/self-archiving].

  ABSTRACT:
  Snakes—a subset of lizards—have traditionally been divided into two major groups based on feeding mechanics: “macrostomy,” involving the ingestion of proportionally large prey items; and “microstomy,” the lack of this ability. “Microstomy”—considered present in scolecophidian and early-diverging alethinophidian snakes—is generally viewed as a symplesiomorphy shared with non-snake lizards. However, this perspective of “microstomy” as plesiomorphic and morphologically homogenous fails to recognize the complexity of this condition and its evolution across “microstomatan” squamates. To challenge this problematic paradigm, we formalize a new framework for conceptualizing and testing the homology of overall character complexes, or “morphotypes,” which underlies our re-assessment of “microstomy.” Using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scans, we analyze the morphology of the jaws and suspensorium across purported “microstomatan” squamates (scolecophidians, early-diverging alethinophidians, and non-snake lizards) and demonstrate that key components of the jaw complex are not homologous at the level of primary character state identity across these taxa. Therefore, rather than treating “microstomy” as a uniform condition, we instead propose that non-snake lizards, early-diverging alethinophidians, anomalepidids, leptotyphlopids, and typhlopoids each exhibit a unique and nonhomologous jaw morphotype: “minimal-kinesis microstomy,” “snout-shifting,” “axle-brace maxillary raking,” “mandibular raking,” and “single-axle maxillary raking,” respectively. The lack of synapomorphy among scolecophidians is inconsistent with the notion of scolecophidians representing an ancestral snake condition, and instead reflects a hypothesis of the independent evolution of fossoriality, miniaturization, and “microstomy” in each scolecophidian lineage. We ultimately
  emphasize that a rigorous approach to comparative anatomy is necessary in constructing evolutionary hypotheses that accurately reflect biological
  reality.

• Date created

  2021-03-22

• Subjects / Keywords

  • ancestral state reconstruction
  • functional morphology
  • homology
  • skull anatomy
  • snake evolution

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-f9m1-bq13

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International