About some skeletal particularities of the first vertebrae related to the mode of prey capture in Uranoscopus scaber (Uranoscopidae)

Feeding in Uranoscopus scaber is characterised by bending of the body just behind the head. Bending is related to the organisation of the first five v ertebrae: vertebral centra of lesser height fitting one into the next; shor t, less tilted neural spines, presence of many intervertebral ligaments. Be nding of the vertebral column causes the head to rotate upward and the mout h to open just beneath the prey; it also brings the pharyngeal jaws, shifte d with respect to each other at rest, to face each other.