I will remove that LMB point. It stood out as odd. Thank you for filling us in on that one.
Does gape actually change with environment then? Would have figured it's more genetic then environment. Why would eating pellets reduce mouth/bone growth? Eating full-bite prey stretches it somehow? (Another interesting area of research I've seen in the literature.. why do they eat maximum gape prey? .. seems an energy efficiency thing)
We seem biased to higher mouth sizes than the literature. I'd be happy to see some data on the smaller side.
It was good of Lauer to respond. I didn't feel he answered my question though. Data has to pass a gut-check and should fit into a continuum. It doesn't exist in isolation. When things don't make sense, it is a good thing to probe for explanations.
