Apparently snake venom evolved from, among other
things, testicular secretions.
Make of that, what you will.
A gene got expressed in a wrong place... that's a mutation... then came
selection... :-)
My thoughts exactly, though I was under the impression that venom-producing
tissue was derived from enamel-producing pits along the snakes' jaws. That
got me doubting that the gland venom was itself a derived salival gland,
though on hindsight the enamel-producing tissue could have been expressed or
migrated elsewere during development.
It's not all that surprising when one comes to think about it, it's just
that news reporters like to make stories more flashy with unusual headlines
and mangle the meaning of that particular piece of research ~:-|
Renato Santos
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