The researchers looked at data and DNA isolated and ethanol preserved tissue samples from 66 individual snakes from 65 species, 52 genera and 22 families
A new study by researchers from the University of Kansas, University of Helsinki and the American Museum of Natural History have challenged the notion that cobras, coral snakes and other snakes of the superfamily Elapoidea originated in Africa, and instead assert that these venomous snakes originated in Asia.
While earlier studies have claimed that these snakes originated in Africa, the researchers new study, “Novel phylogenomic inference and ‘Out of Asia’ biogeography of cobras, coral snakes and their allies,” and published in the Royal Society Open Science, claim that the snakes originated in Asia.
Micrurus Nigrocinctus. Ferdy Timmerman/Shutterstock
The researchers looked at data and DNA isolated and ethanol preserved tissue samples from 66 individual snakes from 65 species, 52 genera and 22 families. They determined that the data collected supports their assertion that both Colubroidea and Elapoidea families of snakes originated in Asia under all the biogeographic models the researchers utilized to make their conclusion.
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“Our results supported multiple successful colonizations by ancestral colubroid or elapoid lineages from Asia into Africa, the Americas, Australasia or Europe; from Africa into Asia, Europe, Australasia; from Europe into Asia; from land habitats in Australasia to marine habitats; and into Europe by ancestral colubroid lineages that were inferred as being widely distributed across Africa and Asia,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
The complete paper with all datasets, “Novel phylogenomic inference and ‘Out of Asia’ biogeography of cobras, coral snakes and their allies” can be read on the Royal Society Open Science website.
