Tracing the origins of iguanid lizards and boine snakes of the pacific.

摘要: Abstract: In 1947, when Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon‐Tiki hit ground in the Tuamotu archipelago, 102 days and ∼4,000 km from its point of origin South America, he inadvertently provided support for one most remarkable hypotheses vertebrate dispersal. Iguanid lizards boine snakes are ancient Gondwanan lineages whose distribution has been demonstrated to have influenced by continental drift. Their enigmatic presence on islands Pacific, however, drawn fantastical conclusions more than 8,000‐km rafting Americas. We reexamine hypothesis dispersal light new molecular data divergence time estimates. Our results suggest an early Paleogene (50–60 million years) these groups plausibility Asiatic or Australian (over land) source. Because subfossil record indicates that iguanas (but not snakes) were a primary food source island inhabitants, absence species with longer history human is u...