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 * Ocean


SOME SEA SNAKES MAY NOT BE COLORBLIND AFTER ALL

The original snake species lost the ability to see advanced color 110 million
years ago.

By Laura Baisas | Published Jul 12, 2023 9:00 AM EDT

 * Environment
 * Science

A banded sea snake swimming freely. Some species of venomous sea snakes lost
their ability to see in color when the moved from the land to the ocean about
110 million years ago. Deposit Photos
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For annulated sea snakes, seeing the wonderful world of color wasn’t always
possible. These venomous sea snakes that roam Australia and Asia’s oceans once
lost their color vision, but a new study into their genomes reveals that they
have potentially regained their ability to see a wider palette of colors over
the last 100 million years. The findings were published July 12 in the journal
Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press.

[Related: A guide to all the places with no snakes.]

For animals, normal color vision is mostly determined by genes called visual
opsins. Multiple losses of opsin genes have occurred as tetrapods—a group
including amphibians, reptiles, and mammals—have evolved. The emergence of new
opsin genes is significantly more rare than losing them. A 2020 study found that
some semi-aquatic snake species in the genus Helicops found in South America are
the only known snakes to regain these opsin genes.



“The ancestral snake, which is the original snake species, lost the capacity for
advanced color vision ~110 million years ago. This was because they likely dwelt
in dim-light environments where visual perception would be limited,” study
co-author and University of Adelaide PhD student and marine biologist Isaac
Rosetteo tells PopSci.

This ancestral snake species lived on the land and would later evolve into all
snake species, including sea snakes. When their genes for color vision were
gone, they could only perceive a very limited range of colors. However, that
likely started to change as some elapid descendants began to change. Within the
last 25 million years, two elapid lineages have moved from terrestrial to marine
environments.

With the fully sequenced genome of the annulated snake in hand, the team in this
new study from the University of Adelaide in Australia, The University of
Plymouth in the United Kingdom and The Vietnamese Academy of Science and
Technology looked at visual opsin genes in five ecologically distinct species of
elapid snakes. Elapids are the family of about 300 venomous snakes that include
mambas, cobras, and the annulated sea snake. Looking at this family more broadly
offered an opportunity to investigate the molecular evolution of vision genes. 

The team found that the annulated sea snake now has four intact copies of the
opsin gene SWS1. Two of these genes are sensitive to ultraviolet light that has
shorter wavelengths, while the other two genes have evolved a new sensitivity to
the longer wavelengths of light that dominate ocean habitats. 

“Only one [of these genes] was expected. To our knowledge, every other ~4000
snake species in the world (except a couple of Helicops species) have just one
of these genes. The most interesting part is that two of these genes allow for
perception of UV light, while the other two allow for the perception of blue
light. This is expected to dramatically increase their sensitivity to colors
which could be very useful in bright-light marine environments,” says Rosetto.



The authors believe that this sensitivity means that the snakes could have color
discrimination that allows them to distinguish predators from prey, as well as
potential snake mates against the more colorful background in the ocean.  

[Related: How cats and dogs see the world.]

This significantly differs from the evolution of opsins in mammals like bats,
dolphins, and whales during their own ecological transitions. These mammals saw
more opsin losses as they adapted to dim-light and aquatic environments.

“Our own primate ancestors developed the advanced color vision we enjoy via a
similar mechanism. Their long-wavelength-sensitive opsin was duplicated, and one
copy changed to allow for perception of a different wavelength of light than the
original,” says Rosetto. “These snakes have done the exact same thing, just with
a different visual opsin and there are now four copies instead of just two.
Without these duplications, our (and their) capacity for color vision would be
heavily reduced.”

Laura Baisas

Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is
particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and
exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of
the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford
comma.



Animals
Biology
Conservation
Evolution
Ocean


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