Paleontologists have known 4 skeletons of fossilized snakes as belonging to a new species of ancient python. The specimens are about 47 million years old and are the oldest python fossils ever found, a discovery that reconfigured the evolutionary tree of those snakes, Katherine Kornei reports for the New York Times: The new discovery pushes back the origins of pythons by about 20 million years, according to an article published this month in the journal Biology Letters.
Fossils emerged from the Messel Pit in Germany, a former shale mine that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is said that the fossil bed opened a window into the evolution of the first Eocene mammals (57 to 36 million years ago).
The discovery of this early python, called Messelopython freyi, in Europe suggests that snakes could have evolved first in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere, where the maximum of their living relatives are today, Laura Geggel reports for Live Science.
“So far, there have been no early fossils to help between the origin of the northern and southern hemispheres,” said Krister Smith, paleontologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt and co-author of the article, to WordsSideKick. com via email. the new fossils are by far the oldest records of pythons, and (being in Europe) help an origin in the northern hemisphere. “
To discern the prestige of fossils as a new species of python, researchers the 4 specimens with others from museum collections around the world. The entire collection included 90 other species of snakes and lizards, and comparisons concerned automatic tomography and microscopic examination, according to The Times. These comparisons produced 785 characteristics cataloguing the number, arrangement and proportion of vertebrae, teeth and other bones.
Messelopython freyi is approximately 3. 2 feet long and had approximately 275 vertebrae, according to the article. In addition to highlighting the option that pythons first evolved in Europe, discovery may also have attractive implications for the timing and reasons why pythons and their boa constrictor cousins diverged.
In the fashion world, boas and pythons are naturally not found anywhere on Earth despite their similar appearances and non-unusual predilection for hunting the lives of their prey. But in the Eocene, it turns out that boas and pythons had to compete. by the same prey, for the remains of any of them were discovered in the messel well.
“In Messel, Messelopython freyi and primitive boas like Eoconstrictor fischeri lived in combination in the same ecosystem, so we want to review the thesis that those two teams of snakes competed, making them unable to percentages of the same habitats,” Smith said in a statement.
The co-author of the article, paleontologist Hussam Zaher of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, tells WordsSideKick. com that we will possibly be informed more about the festival among these snake teams by digging up more fossils of each in Europe. especially those with preserved abdominal content. Alternatively, Zaher says that Florida, where species brought from pythons and boas have been effectively established, may also be offering a window into this ancient ecological confrontation.
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Alex Fox is an independent science journalist in Washington, DC and has written for Science, Nature, Science News, San Jose Mercury News and Mongabay. You can locate him in Alexfoxscience. com.