PARIS: A new look at four fossils has revealed that snakes’ earliest known ancestor lived as many as 70 million years earlier than thought, scientists said.Until now, the fossil record had suggested snakes slithered onto the scene in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 94-100 million years ago.
The fossils, which were unearthed in Britain, Portugal and the United States change how science views the evolutionary path of snakes.
Until these discoveries, the oldest snake fossil on record was dated about 102 million years ago, said University of Alberta paleontologist Michael Caldwell, who led the study published in the journal Nature Communications.
Scientists say snakes evolved from lizards, and a number of previously discovered fossils of primitive snakes featured small back legs.
The snakes described on Tuesday did not include entire skeletons, but the researchers believe that all four may have had something resembling forelimbs and hind limbs – although this does not mean that they had the ability to walk.
“It seems probable that they were slithering, so to speak, though the limbs might still have been used for grasping,” Caldwell said.
“Snakes have generated fear and fascination since ancient times,” paleontologist Sebastián Apesteguía of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and Universidad Maimonides told Reuters.
“However, we know very little about their very origins,” added Apesteguía, who believes that it’s possible the first snakes may have appeared about 190 million years ago.
