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RE: Death Adders are Elapids... WHY?

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Posted by: WW at Thu Nov 27 07:35:30 2008   [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by WW ]  
   

First, an important concept is that organisms are classified on the basis of evolutionary relationships, not based on similarity. So the fact that death adders are covergently similar to vipers in some charcaters is neither here nor there. What matters is what they share the most recent common ancestors with.

With regards to the latter, there have been a considerable number of studies of elapid phylogeny (based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA as well as morphology), all of which have recovered Acanthophis as nested deep within the Elapidae, specifically within the Australian/marine elapid radiation. Furthermore, there have been a large numbers of snake phylogenies that have recovered the elapids as a monophyletic group, and, moreover, very distant from the vipers. Although I can't recall seeing any tree that features Acanthophis as well as vpers in the same tree, you really don't need that - all the available evidence places them firmly within the elapids. Since there is very little evidence questioning the monophyly of the elapids, that settles the question of whether they are vipers or not quite nicely.

Cheers,

WW
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