These days, dragons are keeping “Game of Thrones” fans on their toes. But they are also providing important insights into vertebrate brain evolution, as revealed by the work of Max Planck scientists on the brain of the Australian bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps. Vertebrate evolution took a major turn 320 million years ago when early tetrapods (animals with four limbs) transitioned from water to land, eventually giving rise to three major clades: the reptiles, the birds (an offshoot of the reptilian tree) and the mammals. Because of common ancestry, the brains of all tetrapods share a similar basal architecture established during early development.
Click here for original story, Molecular atlas of an Australian dragon’s brain sheds new light on more than 300 million years of brain evolution
Source: Phys.org