Jannia, the poison-delivery-method is pretty complex, too. It’s amazing they didn’t develop a stinger, or legs, as well. They had to have a gland to produce the poison, a sac to store it, and the hypodermic needle-like teeth to inject it.
I can’t imagine any of them serving a function alone.
Perhaps the rattles started appearing, and snakes started shaking them. Or perhaps they started using a shaking tail to distract predators and prey, and then those wierd mutant rattles came in handy.
We still see genetic mutations, and should one of them prove more useful, eventually, it will become dominant and more pronounced.
Reading “The Evolution Of Desire” was a huge turning point in my thought process.
Either way, it’s fascinating.
P.S. I’ve been lost on this blog at work for the last week or two. Great work, even the commentors have more interesting thunks to think than most blog authors.
The poisons are variations on digestive enzymes, only turned up to 11 potency-wise. Lots of enzyme producing organs have bladders to store their output until needed, so that likely would have copy-pasted in at the same time, and there are several species of reptiles which are venomous, but don’t have fangs. There seems to be a progression of teeth near the venom entry point becoming longer and grooved, eventually culminating in fangs.
Digestion first, then pre-digestive saliva (your saliva has digestive enzymes too for that matter) then more potent saliva, then teeth to stuff it into the prey more effectively once it was strong enough to help with incapacitation and not just chewing, then more specialized saliva, then more specialized teeth. Pretty easy to see how it would have developed a piece at a time.
Jannia, the poison-delivery-method is pretty complex, too. It’s amazing they didn’t develop a stinger, or legs, as well. They had to have a gland to produce the poison, a sac to store it, and the hypodermic needle-like teeth to inject it.
I can’t imagine any of them serving a function alone.
Perhaps the rattles started appearing, and snakes started shaking them. Or perhaps they started using a shaking tail to distract predators and prey, and then those wierd mutant rattles came in handy.
We still see genetic mutations, and should one of them prove more useful, eventually, it will become dominant and more pronounced.
Reading “The Evolution Of Desire” was a huge turning point in my thought process.
Either way, it’s fascinating.
P.S. I’ve been lost on this blog at work for the last week or two. Great work, even the commentors have more interesting thunks to think than most blog authors.
The poisons are variations on digestive enzymes, only turned up to 11 potency-wise. Lots of enzyme producing organs have bladders to store their output until needed, so that likely would have copy-pasted in at the same time, and there are several species of reptiles which are venomous, but don’t have fangs. There seems to be a progression of teeth near the venom entry point becoming longer and grooved, eventually culminating in fangs.
Digestion first, then pre-digestive saliva (your saliva has digestive enzymes too for that matter) then more potent saliva, then teeth to stuff it into the prey more effectively once it was strong enough to help with incapacitation and not just chewing, then more specialized saliva, then more specialized teeth. Pretty easy to see how it would have developed a piece at a time.