The morphology of the inner ear of squamate reptiles and its bearing on the origin of snakes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The inner ear morphology of 80 snake and lizard species, representative of a range of ecologies, is here analysed and compared to that of the fossil stem snakeDinilysia patagonica, using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. Inner ear morphology is linked to phylogeny (we find here a strong phylogenetic signal in the data that can complicate ecological correlations), but also correlated with ecology, withDinilysiaresembling certain semi-fossorial forms (XenopeltisandCylindrophis), consistent with previous reports. We here also find striking resemblances betweenDinilysiaand some semi-aquatic snakes, such asMyron(Caenophidia, Homalopsidae). Therefore, the inner ear morphology ofDinilysiais consistent with semi-aquatic as well as semi-fossorial habits: the most similar forms are either semi-fossorial burrowers with a strong affinity to water (XenopeltisandCylindrophis) or amphibious, intertidal forms which shelter in burrows (Myron).Notably,Dinilysiadoes not cluster as closely with snakes with exclusively terrestrial or obligate burrowing habits (e.g. scolecophidians and uropeltids). Moreover, despite the above similarities,Dinilysiaalso occupies a totally unique morphospace, raising issues with linking it with any particular ecological category.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".