Prey transport in "palatine-erecting" elapid snakes.

Abstract

Cobras and mambas are members of a group of elapid snakes supposedly united by the morphology and inferred behavior of their palatine bone during prey transport (palatine erectors). The palatine erectors investigated (Dendroaspis polylepis, Naja pallida, Ophiophagus hannah, Aspidelaps scutatus, A. lubricus) show differences in the morphology of their feeding apparatus that do not affect the overall behavior of the system. We delineated the structures directly involved in producing palatine erection during prey transport. Palatine erection can be achieved by a colubroid muscle contraction pattern acting on a palato-pterygoid bar with a movable palato-pterygoid joint and a palatine that is stabilized against the snout. The palatine characters originally proposed to cause palatine erection are not required to produce the behavior and actually impede it in Naja pallida. Palatine-erecting elapids share a fundamental design of the palato-maxillary apparatus with all higher snakes. A set of plesiomorphic core characters is functionally integrated to function in prey transport using the pterygoid walk. Variant characters are either part of a structural periphery unrelated to the core structures that define function or patterns of variation are subordinate character sets operating within functional thresholds of a single system.