Did Early Snakes Burrow, Swim or Crawl? 80‑Million‑Year‑Old Fossil Suggests: All Three
Paleontologists have identified a new 80-million-year-old snake fossil, Tametara mirim, in Brazil that suggests early snakes were capable of burrowing, swimming, and crawling. This discovery provides critical evidence in the long-standing debate regarding the evolutionary transition of snakes from lizards.
Why it matters
This fossil fills a significant gap in the evolutionary record, helping scientists understand the morphological adaptations that led to the loss of limbs in snakes.
Paleontologists have unearthed a remarkably preserved fossil snake in Brazil that is reshaping ideas about how the earliest snakes lived and complicating the long-running debate over whether their ancestors burrowed underground, swam in the sea or crawled the surface.
Life reconstruction of Tametara mirim . Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.
“Snakes are essentially highly modified lizards,” said co-author Dr. Roy Ebel, a researcher at the Museums Victoria Research Institute.
“Sometime in the age of dinosaurs, one lizard lineage lost its limbs and stretched out its body. The key question is why.”
“For more than a century, several ideas have competed with each other.”
“One says the first snakes colonized the water, with a long, limbless body suited for swimming, much like an eel.”
“A second says they lived on the surface of the land, among leaf litter and vegetation, where reduced limbs could have eased their movement through dense ground cover.”
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