The snake ancestors that lived 100 million years ago on earth, had legs and cheek bone. They have been disappeared in their modern day descendants.
Recent fossils gained from Argentina, described in science advances journal, is a big deal for Snake lovers. These fossils are crucial to reveal the evolutionary journey of modern day snakes.
Credit...Raúl Orencio Gómez
The skull of a snake nearly 100 million years old that belonged to the extinct group Najash, which retained hind legs.Credit...Fernando Garberoglio
we know very less about the evolutionary past of these legless lizard, due to the lack of fossils of ancestors of snake, who shared the earth with Dinosaurs. The complicated fossils , especially Skull, are off Najash genus which existed about hundred million years ago.
Najash is an extinct genus of basal snake
from the Late Cretaceous canderelas formationof Patagonia. Like a number of other Cretaceous and living snakes it retained hindlimbs, but Najash is unusual in having well-developed legs that extend outside the rib cage, and a pelvis connected to the spine.
Najash snake
These fossils can be very useful to resolve mysteries about their evolution to modern form.
Fernando Garberoglio, who led the research, discovered the most spectacular of these new skull specimens, called MPCA 500, in 2013 when he was an undergraduate student.
The fossil of a snake recovered from La Buitrera in northern Patagonia.Credit...Fernando Garberoglio
“That skull is now the most complete Mesozoic snake skull known and preserves key data on ancient snake anatomy,” said Mr. Garberoglio, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at the Fundación Azara at Universidad Maimónides in Buenos.
The exceptional preservation of these fossils enabled Gaberoleo and his colleagues, to study long standing mystery , like sequence of events that lead to their modern form
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