Click on image for link to related article on this blog: ‘How snakes lost their legs’ The image is taken from a recent article in scenews.com which is linked and discusses the discovery of a well-preserved snake fossil with four limbs and even elbows… The article is summarised below:
…Paleontologists Find Four-Limbed Snake Fossil
…But the most remarkable thing about this snake is the presence of two sets of legs.
The front legs are very small, about 0.4 inches (1 cm) long, but have little elbows and wrists and hands that are just five millimeters in length. The back legs are slightly longer and the feet are larger than the hands and could have been used to grasp its prey.
“It is generally accepted that snakes evolved from lizards at some point in the distant past. What scientists don’t know yet is when they evolved, why they evolved, and what type of lizard they evolved from,” said Dr Martill, first author of a paper published in the journal Science.
“This fossil answers some very important questions, for example it now seems clear to us that snakes evolved from burrowing lizards, not from marine lizards.”…
