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Hannah Ortega, Austin American-Statesman
Researchers on the University of Texas at Austin have made main headway in understanding an odd and elusive species of snake-like worm often called amphisbaenians.
The worms are vertebrates, scaly and have a “giant central tooth and generally small forearms,” in response to a information launch from the college. They stay underground and burrow in sand and soil — very like the big sandworms within the motion film “Dune” — making them difficult to observe in their natural habitats.
Using a micro-CT scanner, researchers within the university’s Jackson School of Geosciences compared 15 amphisbaenians from southern Africa by their bone structures and other anatomical features. The study, which informed two papers published in the March issue of The Anatomical Record, is the most detailed to date of the African amphisbaenians, according to the researchers.
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What did researchers discover?
UT Austin researchers used the micro-CT scans to render individual bones as large 3D-printed models, enabling them to take a closer look at bones like the tabulosphenoid, which is almost entirely inside the worms’ skulls. The bone is almost impossible to see without micro-CT technology, said Christopher J. Bell, lead author on one of the papers and a professor in the Jackson School.
“You could fit three skulls of the Zygaspis quadrifrons on the nail of my pinky. We can now look at these really small vertebrate organisms in a measure of detail that we never had before,” Bell stated, in response to the discharge.
Researchers additionally found wave-like buildings inside the worms’ skulls that seize onto one another and the worms’ singular central tooth and two backside enamel, which they use to hatch from their eggs and tear aside prey.
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Tiny worms behave extra like snakes
Research on the worms started greater than 15 years in the past at Sam Houston State University when Patrick J. Lewis, a professor there, led a analysis journey to Botswana with college students. While digging, Lewis and his staff started catching the worms, which behaved extra like snakes.
“They wriggle round and attempt to escape and transfer in ways in which worms simply aren’t in a position to,” Lewis stated, in response to the discharge. “These are far more like little snakes in the best way that they transfer and work together. It’s simply stunning for one thing that’s so tiny. You simply don’t count on that habits.”
Though the worms stay everywhere in the world, little or no was identified about them till recent analysis was performed, in response to the discharge. The analysis was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Jackson School of Geosciences and Sam Houston State University.
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