Journal
BIOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 16, Issue 12, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0735
Keywords
Messel; Pythonidae; Eocene; biogeography; convergent evolution; macrostomatan ecomorph
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Funding
- Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung
- Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo [2018/11902-9]
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Extant large constrictors, pythons and boas, have a wholly allopatric distribution that has been interpreted largely in terms of vicariance in Gondwana. Here, we describe a stem pythonid based on complete skeletons from the early-middle Eocene of Messel, Germany. The new species is close in age to the divergence of Pythonidae from North American Loxocemus and corroborates a Laurasian origin and dispersal of pythons. Remarkably, it existed in sympatry with the stem boid Eoconstrictor. These occurrences demonstrate that neither dispersal limitation nor strong competitive interactions were decisive in structuring biogeographic patterns early in the history of large, hyper-macrostomatan constrictors and exemplify the synergy between phylogenomic and palaeontological approaches in reconstructing past distributions.
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