Scientists discover why animals evolved necks, and surprisingly it wasn’t to turn their heads - The Brighter Side of News
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Models suggest that separating the head from the shoulders did not immediately give early tetrapod relatives highly mobile necks. Mechanical tests on lake sturgeon, combined with fossil anatomy, predict only small head movements in most species examined. The findings favor a link with forelimb locomotion, but movement estimates depend on a living analogue and exclude several surrounding tissues. An anatomical neck did not necessarily give ancient vertebrates the freedom to look around. Models of several early tetrapod relatives suggest their heads remained surprisingly restricted, even after the skull separated from the shoulders. The findings challenge the assumption that greater head mobility drove one of the major changes associated with the transition toward land. The authors propose that changing demands on the shoulders offer a better explanation than a newly flexible head. As front appendages took on a greater role in movement, separating the shoulder apparatus from the skull may have become advantageous. Substantial neck mobility, their analysis suggests, generally developed later, rather than arriving automatically with that separation.
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