Biology Letters最新文献_第2页

Predicting body length and assessing the shape of tail-propelled Mesozoic marine reptiles. 预测体长和评估尾巴推进的中生代海洋爬行动物的形状。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-17 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0374

Valentin Fischer, Aymeric Rogé, Romain Cottereau, Francesco Della Giustina, Antoine Laboury, Isaure Scavezzoni, Jamie Alexander MacLaren

{"title":"Predicting body length and assessing the shape of tail-propelled Mesozoic marine reptiles.","authors":"Valentin Fischer, Aymeric Rogé, Romain Cottereau, Francesco Della Giustina, Antoine Laboury, Isaure Scavezzoni, Jamie Alexander MacLaren","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0374","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0374","url":null,"abstract":"Body length is a crucial ecological predictor in vertebrates, yet total body length proxies have seldom been assessed for ancient marine top predators. Here, we test the strength of phylogenetic imputation and 23 linear measurements, sampling both broad skeletal regions and frequently fossilized elements (such as vertebral centra), in predicting the body length of the main clades of tail-propelled Mesozoic marine reptiles (Ichthyosauria, Mosasauridae and pelagic thalattosuchians). We embed this marine reptile sample within a comparative framework with raptorial cetaceans, and analyse the evolution of body proportions in these clades. We find that trunk length and centrum dimensions are strong predictors of body length, opening up the possibility to build vast datasets of body length estimations for Mesozoic marine reptiles from minimal preserved remains. We provide body length calculation equations for all traits and all clades. Proxies fared much better and often had distinct slopes when applied clade-wide rather than when applied to the global dataset. We also show that body length in Mesozoic marine reptiles is more labile than their skeletal architectures, rendering phylogenetic imputation methods less effective than skeletal proxies for assessing body lengths.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250374"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12440614/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145074232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Uncovering new lineages in the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) with museum mitogenomics. 利用博物馆有丝分裂基因组学揭示巽他穿山甲（Manis javanica）的新谱系。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-10 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0222

Arlo Hinckley, Mary Faith C Flores, Nurul Inayah, Melissa T R Hawkins

{"title":"Uncovering new lineages in the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) with museum mitogenomics.","authors":"Arlo Hinckley, Mary Faith C Flores, Nurul Inayah, Melissa T R Hawkins","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0222","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0222","url":null,"abstract":"Accurately identifying evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) is crucial for conservation planning, especially for species like pangolins threatened by overhunting and habitat loss. ESUs help categorize different pangolin populations, aiding in understanding their genetic diversity and distribution, which is vital for targeted conservation efforts. This research generated mitochondrial genomes from historical museum specimens of Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) from underrepresented locations, uncovering a new evolutionary lineage from the Mentawai Islands that diverged from Indochina and west Sundaland populations around 760 000 years ago. This population thereby represents a divergent ESU with a small distribution, important for conservation planning. The novel sequences provide resources for forensic labs tracing the origin of confiscated scales and shed light into the potential distribution of the 'mysterious pangolin'. Additionally, this research confirmed the presence of the two major M. javanica lineages in Java and extended the known distribution of the eastern clade to Bali and East Kalimantan. Our findings potentially suggest a recent bottleneck and postglacial expansion of pangolins across Indochina and west Sundaland. Further investigation with genomic and morphological evidence, contact area sampling and type sequencing will be required to evaluate the taxonomic status of different M. javanica lineages and M. culionensis.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250222"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12419878/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145028912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Passive acoustic monitoring of sound characteristics and vocalization patterns of the brown croaker. 黄花鱼声音特征和发声模式的被动声学监测。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-10 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0314

Hansoo Kim, Young Geul Yoon, Sungho Cho, Sunhyo Kim, Mira Kim, Donhyug Kang

{"title":"Passive acoustic monitoring of sound characteristics and vocalization patterns of the brown croaker.","authors":"Hansoo Kim, Young Geul Yoon, Sungho Cho, Sunhyo Kim, Mira Kim, Donhyug Kang","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0314","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0314","url":null,"abstract":"Passive acoustic monitoring is an observation method for detecting and characterizing ocean soundscapes, and it has recently been used to observe underwater marine life. The brown croaker (Miichthys miiuy) is an important fish species in the Northwest Pacific Ocean that produces biological sounds. In this study, the sounds of 150 adult brown croakers were recorded continuously for three weeks using a self-recording hydrophone. The acoustic parameters of their calls, choruses and vocalization patterns were analysed using environmental factors from the ocean. The brown croaker's call sound with zero peak sound pressure level was 150.8 dB, but the chorus sound was relatively high at 161.3 dB. The vocalization of the sounds occurred daily around sunset and dusk and was associated with decreased spawning activity when the water temperature decreased below approximately 25°C. The acoustic characteristics of the brown croaker's sounds will help improve ocean soundscape management to protect the marine ecosystem and identify spawning and fishing grounds.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250314"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12419897/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145028848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Rethinking thecodonty: the influence of two centuries of comparative dental anatomy on our understanding of tooth evolution. 重新思考牙齿：两个世纪的比较牙齿解剖学对我们对牙齿进化的理解的影响。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-24 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0316

Gabriel Mestriner, Gregory F Funston, Júlio C A Marsola, Sterling J Nesbitt, Max C Langer, David C Evans, Aaron R H LeBlanc

{"title":"Rethinking thecodonty: the influence of two centuries of comparative dental anatomy on our understanding of tooth evolution.","authors":"Gabriel Mestriner, Gregory F Funston, Júlio C A Marsola, Sterling J Nesbitt, Max C Langer, David C Evans, Aaron R H LeBlanc","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0316","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0316","url":null,"abstract":"'Thecodont' refers to teeth implanted in sockets within the jaw, a condition traditionally associated with living mammals and crocodylians, which also coincidentally have teeth attached by ligaments to the socket walls (gomphosis). For over a century, the bony periodontium of many other amniotes has been described as a single tissue, 'bone of attachment', causing confusion over dental tissue homology. The conventional definitions of 'thecodonty' exclude species with fused teeth ('ankylothecodonts'), implying a fundamental difference between mammals, crocodylians and most other vertebrates. However, the stereotypically 'thecodont' attachment tissues have been discovered in representatives of all major amniote clades, showing that gomphosis and ankylosis likely stem from heterochronic changes in the timing and extent of cementum and alveolar bone mineralization. This challenges (i) previous hypotheses regarding the evolution of the amniote periodontium, (ii) the 'bone of attachment' paradigm, and (iii) the significance of 'thecodonty'. We suggest a new nomenclatural approach that incorporates recent histological and evolutionary research and divides thecodonty into anatomical categories to clarify their origin and evolution. We propose the terms anisothecodont and isothecodont to denote, respectively, asymmetric and symmetric implantation of teeth in their sockets. Regardless of the geometry of the connection, we propose using ankylosis and gomphosis to denote the mode of tooth attachment.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250316"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12457032/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145129857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Scaling of ovipositor size in two species of Drosophila: altered genital coupling mechanisms and evolution of allometric slopes. 两种果蝇产卵器大小的缩放：生殖偶联机制的改变和异速生长斜坡的进化。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-17 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0295

Takashi Matsuo

{"title":"Scaling of ovipositor size in two species of Drosophila: altered genital coupling mechanisms and evolution of allometric slopes.","authors":"Takashi Matsuo","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0295","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0295","url":null,"abstract":"Animal genitalia typically exhibit limited size variation relative to overall body size, a pattern known as negative allometry. The 'one-size-fits-all' hypothesis suggests that genital compatibility between sexes constrains the evolution of extreme genital sizes, yet direct evidence remains scarce. Drosophila suzukii presents a unique opportunity to test this hypothesis from the female perspective. This species has evolved an enlarged, sclerotized ovipositor capable of piercing intact fruit skins. However, this innovation necessitated an altered genital coupling mechanism, as the modified ovipositor-also functioning as part of the female genitalia-posed a mechanical obstacle to copulation. In contrast, D. subpulchrella, the closest relative of D. suzukii, retains the ancestral coupling mechanism, which depends on genital size compatibility between sexes. Allometric analyses revealed that D. subpulchrella ovipositors exhibit shallower scaling slopes than other body parts, consistent with the negative allometry rule. Conversely, D. suzukii ovipositors display significantly steeper slopes, suggesting that the new coupling mechanism has relaxed the constraint on genital size. These findings provide novel support for the one-size-fits-all hypothesis, offering unprecedented resolution into the role of coupling mechanisms in shaping genital allometry.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250295"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12441749/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145074312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Kinship as a double-edged sword: relatedness among burying beetle larvae enhances growth but increases mortality. 亲缘关系是一把双刃剑：埋葬甲虫幼虫之间的亲缘关系促进了生长，但也增加了死亡率。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-10 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0319

Paul Huber, Daniel Wittmann, Sandra Steiger

{"title":"Kinship as a double-edged sword: relatedness among burying beetle larvae enhances growth but increases mortality.","authors":"Paul Huber, Daniel Wittmann, Sandra Steiger","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0319","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0319","url":null,"abstract":"Theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that relatedness can have complex effects on social life. While high relatedness may promote sibling cooperation and altruism through indirect fitness benefits, it can also intensify competition if siblings share similar needs and competitive strategies. Moreover, low genetic diversity in highly related groups may heighten susceptibility to pathogens. Hence, due to these potential opposing effects, the consequences of relatedness for offspring fitness within a family context are not fully understood. Here, we investigated how relatedness among interacting offspring influences their fitness in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, a species exhibiting facultative parental care, with larvae developing in a microbially rich and challenging environment. To assess offspring effects without parental influence, we raised larvae in the absence of care, thereby eliminating parental buffering and exposing them to a more stressful environment. We compared the growth and survival rates of broods consisting of full siblings and broods with unrelated larvae and found both benefits and costs of relatedness. Larvae gained weight more rapidly in the early stages when surrounded by siblings but suffered higher mortality later in development. These findings suggest that high relatedness facilitates cooperative effects but comes at a cost, potentially reducing social immunocompetence.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250319"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12419886/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145028885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Blood capillary geometry helps to explain the link between genome size and metabolic rates. 毛细血管的几何形状有助于解释基因组大小和代谢率之间的联系。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-10 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0269

Ion Udroiu

{"title":"Blood capillary geometry helps to explain the link between genome size and metabolic rates.","authors":"Ion Udroiu","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0269","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0269","url":null,"abstract":"In the past decades, several authors have investigated the possibility that genome size is correlated with metabolic rates, obtaining conflicting results. The main biological explanation among the supporters of this correlation was related to the nucleotypic effect of the genome size, which, determining the cellular volume and hence the surface area-to-volume ratio, influences cellular metabolism. In the present study, I tested a different hypothesis: genome size, influencing red blood cell (RBC) volume, is correlated with capillary density and diameter. These, in turn, are (directly and inversely) correlated with mass-specific metabolic rates, and this can explain the link between genome size and metabolic rates. I have found that these correlations are significant in vertebrates with nucleated RBCs (non-mammals), but not in species with enucleated RBCs (i.e. mammals). Although further research is needed (in particular to understand how to test the correlation between genome size and metabolic rates in ectotherms), my results show that genome size and metabolic rates act on each other through a physical constraint. Through enucleation, mammals (but also some fish and salamanders) removed this constraint.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250269"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12421435/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145028877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Intergenerational effects of dietary changes on trait means and variance. 饮食变化对性状均值和方差的代际影响。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-24 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0310

Marcus Lee, Kevin Tran, Yasmine Castillo, Matthew R Walsh

{"title":"Intergenerational effects of dietary changes on trait means and variance.","authors":"Marcus Lee, Kevin Tran, Yasmine Castillo, Matthew R Walsh","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0310","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0310","url":null,"abstract":"Environmental stress can alter not only trait means but also trait variances-an often-overlooked evolvable feature with ecological and evolutionary relevance. We examine how dietary stress affects both the mean and variance of morphological and reproductive traits across two generations in clonal Daphnia. We manipulated maternal and offspring environments with high- (algae) or low-quality (cyanobacteria) diets, measuring eye size, body size and reproductive output in eight genotypes. Morphological trait means showed consistent treatment-by-generation interactions: low-quality diets reduced trait size, with partial recovery upon re-exposure to high-quality food. Reproduction was largely determined by current conditions, while eye and body size showed legacy effects of maternal environment. Variance patterns were trait-specific: eye size variance declined under stress, body size variance increased across generations and reproductive variance peaked in offspring released from maternal stress. We developed a conceptual framework considering roles for condition transfer, anticipatory plasticity and diversified bet-hedging as potential mechanisms underlying these intergenerational impacts on trait variances. Although no single mechanism explained all outcomes, our findings tentatively support condition transfer and suggest potential co-occurrence of multiple strategies. This study underscores the importance of jointly examining mean and variance responses to stress to better understand phenotypic plasticity and its evolutionary consequences.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250310"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12457026/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145129824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Genomic and morphological analysis reveals long-term mammoth hybridization in British Columbia, Canada. 基因组学和形态学分析揭示了长毛象在加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省的长期杂交。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-24 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0305

Marianne Dehasque, Tom van der Valk, J Camilo Chacón-Duque, Laura Termes, Petter Larsson, Hannah M Moots, Florentine Tubbesing, Juliana Larsdotter, Gonzalo Oteo-García, Kelsey Moreland, Hans van Essen, Victoria Arbour, Grant Keddie, Michael P Richards, David Díez-Del-Molino, Peter D Heintzman, Adrian Lister, Love Dalén

{"title":"Genomic and morphological analysis reveals long-term mammoth hybridization in British Columbia, Canada.","authors":"Marianne Dehasque, Tom van der Valk, J Camilo Chacón-Duque, Laura Termes, Petter Larsson, Hannah M Moots, Florentine Tubbesing, Juliana Larsdotter, Gonzalo Oteo-García, Kelsey Moreland, Hans van Essen, Victoria Arbour, Grant Keddie, Michael P Richards, David Díez-Del-Molino, Peter D Heintzman, Adrian Lister, Love Dalén","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0305","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0305","url":null,"abstract":"Climate changes profoundly impact species distributions and can drastically alter dynamics between formerly isolated taxa. The evolution of mammoths within North America was characterized by repeated cycles of dispersal and putative gene flow between woolly and Columbian mammoths. However, as genome-wide studies on mammoths have predominantly focused on Siberia, the consequences of these North American range shifts remain unclear. Here, we generated genome-wide and morphological data for two Late Pleistocene mammoth molars from British Columbia, Canada (BC), and jointly analysed these with previously published data. Our genome-wide analysis (n = 16) revealed gene flow between woolly and Columbian mammoths that would have gone undiscovered based on morphological (n = 48) and mitochondrial analysis (n = 124) alone. Consistent with their hybrid nature, our analyses suggest that these two BC mammoths had elevated genomic diversity. Our results highlight the importance of combining data types to reconstruct past evolutionary events. These findings demonstrate how the geographical range expansion of woolly mammoths resulted in long-term hybridization with local Columbian mammoths and enhance our understanding of the genomic and morphological consequences of climate-mediated dispersal.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250305"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12461089/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145136210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Tongue-bite apparatus highlights functional innovation in a 310-million-year-old ray-finned fish. 一种3.1亿年前的鳐鱼的舌咬器官突出了其功能上的创新。

IF 3 2区生物学

Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-09-01 Epub Date: 2025-09-03 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0270

Sam Giles, Matthew Kolmann, Matt Friedman

{"title":"Tongue-bite apparatus highlights functional innovation in a 310-million-year-old ray-finned fish.","authors":"Sam Giles, Matthew Kolmann, Matt Friedman","doi":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0270","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rsbl.2025.0270","url":null,"abstract":"Gill-skeleton modifications for processing prey represent a major source of functional innovation in living ray-finned fishes. Here we present the oldest actinopterygian tongue bite, derived from the gill skeleton, in the Middle Pennsylvanian (approx. 310 Ma) †Platysomus parvulus. Unrelated to extant tongue biters, this deep-bodied taxon possesses a large, multipartite basibranchial tooth plate opposing an upper tooth field centred on the vomer. This branchial structure occurs in conjunction with toothed jaws, indicating a role for both the basibranchial plate and jaws in feeding. †P. parvulus illustrates the assembly of the tongue bite in the geologically younger †Bobasatraniidae: large opposing dorsal (vomerine) and ventral (basibranchial) crushing plates associated with toothless jaws. The origin of tongue bites falls within the Carboniferous actinopterygian radiation, although it postdates the first signs of the consumption of hard prey (durophagy) in other ray-finned lineages by several million years. This lends support to a protracted model of actinopterygian diversification in the aftermath of the end-Devonian extinction.","PeriodicalId":9005,"journal":{"name":"Biology Letters","volume":"21 9","pages":"20250270"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12405943/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144941648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0