![]() Interestingly, its spine wasn’t vastly different to modern snakes. It lived well before T-rexes first evolved. The snake had been frozen in time 34 million years before the final extinction of dinosaurs. After being analysed inside a powerful X-ray called a synchrotron, scientists announced that this was an all new species: the Myanmar dawn snake (Xiaophis Myanmarensis). The head was missing, but 97 vertebra were intact, along with the attached ribs.įragments of insects and leaves within the amber proved that this was a forest snake. The long-extinct snake measured 4.75cm and was almost certainly a hatchling. The amber preservation method is all too real, and in 2018, a 99 million year old snake species was discovered in Myanmar (Burma). In Jurassic Park, Dr John Hammond manages to resurrect dinosaurs by finding mosquitoes frozen in amber for 65 million years, extracting dino DNA from the sucked blood still in their bodies. In 2022, the discovery of a second Sanajeh indicus skull was discovered, so this may have been a common Cretaceous species. Sanajeh indicus didn’t have a jaw capable of swallowing eggs, but was coiled around them anyway – probably waiting for them to hatch. It wasn’t capable of unhinging and gaping wide yet, but could cope with larger prey than before, as the 50cm dino infants illustrated. The jaw of this snake was a halfway house. At first, they assumed that the bones were prey of the dinosaurs, until in 2010, when they finally announced that it was an all-new prehistoric snake: Sanajeh indicus. The eggs were quickly identified, but the snake took longer. They remained there for 67.5 million years, perfectly preserved, until a western Indian archaeological dig finally uncovered their fossils in 1987. It wasted no time approaching, sending the mini dinos into a panic, and wrapped itself around the egg.īut at that moment, the snake and its prey were buried in an avalanche of sediment. In the late Cretaceous period, a 3.2 metre snake followed a scent, and spotted the prize it had been dreaming of: a titanosaur nest with eggs and hatchlings. Modern snakes with modern skulls already existed in the Cretaceous, and Coniophis precedens was probably an increasingly outcompeted leftover (no stretchy jaw was the problem). Coniophis precedens wasn’t believed to be the ancestor of today’s snakes, but a relic in its own time. ![]() The fossils were all found in Montana and eastern Wyoming floodplains, including the same muddy soils as T-rex skeletons. It was probably restricted to salamanders and small lizards. Its jawbone was fixed, preventing it from opening freakishly wide like a python, and limiting the size of its prey. But its skull was more like today’s lizards. Its snake-like body was all in place, as its vertebrae were similar to modern snakes. This species roamed the Earth during the cretaceous period 65 million years ago, just before the dinosaur’s total extinction. In 2012, the floodgates opened as new vertabrae and jawbones emerged, and scientists concluded that Coniophis precedens was possibly the “missing link” between snakes and lizards. ![]() This prehistoric snake was discovered a century ago, but only through a single isolated vertebra. © Wikimedia Commons User: Skye McDavid – CC BY-SA 4.0 The skeleton of a wonambi still lies on the floor of Naracoorte Caves in southern Australia. A problem was that wonambi lacked a flexible skull, being such an ancient family, and so was restricted in its prey size, sticking to smaller marsupials. Yet by Wonambi naracoortensis‘s time, it had been whittled down to a few members, or maybe it was the last one of all. The wider wonambi family lasted for 90 millions years, over 50% of recorded snake history. Wonambi is a possible source for the Aboriginal rainbow serpent myth – some believe the legend to actually be a long held collective memory that persisted for an unimaginably long time. Aboriginals with their spears and bushfires may have wiped them out, but so might natural global warming, evaporating the water holes they favoured and creating the arid Australia we know today. Wonambi measured 5-6 metres and was a constrictor, with brutal inward curving teeth that prevented any prey from escaping. This was an Australian snake which differs from others here in that it went extinct only very recently, extinguishing into oblivion in the Pleistocene circa 44,000 years ago (the most recent fossil). Source: “Thylacoleo vs Giant Matsoiid Snake – Naracoorte Fossil Centre” by Alpha – CC BY-SA 2.0Īctually called Wonambi naracoortensis, but plain old wonambi sounds cooler.
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