A Cretaceous terrestrial snake with robust hindlimbs and a sacrum

Sebastián Apesteguía () and Hussam Zaher ()
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Sebastián Apesteguía: Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia’
Hussam Zaher: Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo

Nature, 2006, vol. 440, issue 7087, 1037-1040

Abstract: How snakes got snake-like Think 'snake', and a limbless reptile comes to mind. But it wasn't always so. Some fossil snakes with external limbs are known, and enough fossils have been found to show that limb loss in snakes was not a simple, gradual process. A newly discovered fossil from the Cretaceous of Argentina bears not only robust hindlimbs but — never seen before in a snake — a sacral region that allowed the limbs to articulate with the backbone. This is probably the most primitive snake yet known, and its anatomy suggests a terrestrial, burrowing origin for snakes, rather than the marine origin often suggested.

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1038/nature04413

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