This Fossil Friday features the “legged” snake Najash rionegrina from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia, which is one of the oldest fossil snakes known to science. It was found in terrestrial sediments and shows a well-defined sacrum with pelvis connected to the spine and functional hind legs. Therefore it was considered as supporting an origin of snakes from burrowing rather than aquatic ancestors (Groshong 2006). I had reported about the highly controversial and hotly debated topic of snake origins in a previous article (Bechly 2023), where you can find links to all the relevant scientific literature. The authors commented in the press releases that this burst of biological novelty suggests that “snakes are like the Big Bang ‘singularity’ in cosmology” (SBU 2024; also see Cosmos 2024,Osborne 2024, Sivasubbu & Scaria 2024, Wilcox 2024).

Source: The Hindu June 29, 2024 01:36 UTC