英语科普小知识 生物学家完成所有已知蛇蜥类的物种图谱.docVIP

A George Washington University biologist and a team of researchers have created the first large-scale evolutionary family tree for every snake and lizard around the globe. The findings were recently published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. Alex Pyron, the Robert F. Griggs Assistant Professor of Biology in GWs Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, along with researchers from the City University of New York and Arizona State University, detail the cataloging of 4,161 species of snakes and lizards, or?squamates（有鳞的）. ? Squamates include all lizards and snakes found throughout the globe, including around 9,500 species on every continent except Antarctica, and found in most oceans, said Dr. Pyron. This is everything from cobras to garter snakes to tiny geckos to the Komodo Dragon to the Gila Monster. They range from tiny threadsnakes that can curl up on a dime to 10 feet monitor lizards and 30 foot pythons. They eat everything from ants to?wildebeest（牛羚）. ? The evolutionary family tree, or?phylogeny（种系发生）, includes all families and subfamilies and most genus and species groups, said Dr. Pyron. While there are gaps on some branches of the tree, the structure of the tree goes a long way toward fully mapping every genus and species group. ? Its like building an incomplete family tree for your family, but with half of the children sampled. Youre in it, but not your brother, one of your cousins is, but not another. However, because its so complete, we know where the missing relatives go because theres no longer as much mystery as to how the missing species, or cousins, are related, with a few notable exceptions for some remaining species. ? This is also a community effort. We sequenced hundreds of these species ourselves but took thousands more from public databases, building on the work of others. ? Understanding how various snakes and lizards are connected to each other fills a major gap in knowledge, said Dr. Pyron, because before this, there were no single