First fossilized snake embryo ever discovered rewrites history of ancient snakes
July 19, 2018 by Katie Willis, University of Alberta
A fossilized baby snake discovered in a 105-million-year-old amber fragment shows the ancient species lived in a forest environment in what is now Myanmar. Credit: Cheung Chung Tat
The first-ever discovery of an ancient snake embryo, preserved in 105-million-year-old amber, provides important new information on the evolution of modern snakes, according to a new study led by University of Alberta paleontologists.
"This snake is linked to ancient snakes from Argentina, Africa, India and Australia," explained paleontologist Michael Caldwell, lead author and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. "It is an important—and until now, missing—component of understanding snake evolution from southern continents, that is Gondwana, in the mid-Mesozoic."
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-fossilized-snake-embryo-rewrites-history.html#jCp
