Fossil suggests snakes evolved on land.

[BreweryYardRat]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/19/fossil.snake.ap/index.html

Something to take our mind off our troubles briefly.

The creature, named Najash rionegrina, is "a fantastic animal," said Jack Conrad, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and co-curator of an upcoming exhibit on lizards and snakes. It lived in the Patagonia region of Argentina some 90 million years ago, said Hussam Zaher of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, who describes the find in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Its size is unknown, but it wasn't more than 3 feet long,

It's the first time scientists have found a snake with a sacrum -- a bony feature supporting the pelvis. That feature was lost as snakes evolved from lizards, and since this is the only known snake that hasn't lost it, it must be the most primitive known, he said.

The creature clearly lived on land, both because its anatomy suggests it lived in burrows and because the deposits in which the fossils were found came from a terrestrial environment. So, if the earliest known snake lived on land, that suggests snakes evolved on land, Zaher said.

If snakes did evolve on land rather than the sea, their fossil record might be less complete because early fossils would have been better preserved in a marine environment, he said. That, in turn, suggests "we may not know all the lineages of early snake evolution...Maybe several snake lineages lost the legs of their lizard ancestors independently."

[BrownOak]

1. Dear Seawolf

What is this "evolution" stuff you speak of.

Sincerely,
Kansas

[drhilarius]

2. This has been THE year for transitional fossils...

poor cretinists, running out of places to hide and rationalize.

[Appalachian_American]

9. Cretinists and creationists don't even rationalize fossil discoveries,

though.

[Bushies gotta go]

3. but but but.... I heard the world was only 6000 years old... huh? n/t

[rpannier]

4. Which is what it says in the Bible.

This creature obviously was the father of the snake that tempted Eve with the apple.

[CoffeeCat]

5. Oh....come on now...

...we all know that snakes don't "evolve."

The first one appeared in a tree, and tempted that nice lady, Eve.

And dinosaurs are Jesus horses.

[Xeric]

6. Snakes with legs! On a muthafuckin plane!

eom

[XemaSab]

12. And there's not a Got-damned thing you can do about it!

[WindRavenX]

7. wrong

The bible doesn't mention no evo-homo-lution! :sarcasm:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Their direct descendants are known as NeoCons.

[pitohui]

10. where did they think they evolved

they are clearly not flying creatures, of course they evolved on land?

what am i missing here?

[XemaSab]

11. There are sea snakes

That live in the ocean.

They're poisonous, too! :bounce:

[Ediacara]

14. The currnt theory is that snakes and their ancestors were aquatic lizards

The closest relatives of snakes are aquatic lizards called mososaurs, and early snake fossils seemed to show some adaptations for swimming.

[TheBaldyMan]

13. There are modern snakes with vestigial legs, some of whom may be recent

(in an evolutionary timeframe) adaptations to the ecological stresses that favour such an adaptation.

It's really no surprise that a link wwas found in the fossil record, it could be argued that reptiles have undergone similar adaptations several times in the past.

The snake's vestigial limbs only exist as pelvic spurs but x-rays show structures that suggest rear limb bones in other vertebrates. I didn't know it was lacking a sacrum.