Unique bone microanatomy reveals ancestry of subterranean specializations in mammals.

ABSTRACT: Acquiring a subterranean lifestyle entails a substantial shift for many aspects of terrestrial vertebrates' biology. Although this lifestyle is associated with multiple instances of convergent evolution, the relative success of some subterranean lineages largely remains unexplained. Here, we focus on the mammalian transitions to life underground, quantifying bone microanatomy through high-resolution X-ray tomography. The true moles stand out in this dataset. Examination of this family's bone histology reveals that the highly fossorial moles acquired a unique phenotype involving large amounts of compacted coarse cancellous bone. This phenotype exceeds the adaptive optimum seemingly shared by several other subterranean mammals and can be traced back to some of the first known members of the

SUBMITTER: Amson E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9783445 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature