Squamate tongues: Disentangling Natural and Sexual Selection

Abstract

Squamates use their tongues for multiple purposes resulting in variation of tongue structure between species. I investigate natural selection on tongue morphology between lizards, and sexual selection on snake tongue morphology. Results show dietary similarity diet and hunting strategies between lizard as opposed to phylogeny results in similar tongue morphology. Differences in mate searching behaviour between the sexes in snakes result in sex-based divergence in snake tongue tine lengths and microfacet densities for one species.