The baby snake found by scientists fossilized in amber was coiled on the trees. The oldest fossil baby snake was discovered beautifully preserved in the famous ancient resin
The baby snake found by scientists fossilized in amber was coiled on the trees. The oldest fossil baby snake was discovered beautifully preserved in the famous ancient resin.
The sensational discovery is the work of a group of paleontologists from the China University of Geosciences in Beijing and actually happened almost by chance (as often happens in science), thanks to the passion of Lida Xing, main author of the work, for fossils of Amber.
In early 2016, during one of his trips to Myanmar, where amber is mined, an amber trader approached him claiming to have found crocodile skin in the amber, but when Xing saw the diamond shape of the scales , recognized it as a snake, something that had never been found in the hundreds of thousands of fossils in those fossil resin deposits.
These are in fact old of 99 million years and they've already produced other amazing treasures, including dinosaur feathers, little birds and lizards, along with the usual insects and plants typically found in amber. But never baby snakes. And never with that state of conservation.
"It is spectacular to have a small snake in the fossil record because, of course, these are small and delicate," said Michael Caldwell, a professor of biology at the University of Alberta who called the discovery "extremely exciting."
And it doesn't stop there. Because paleontologists have also found a part of snake skin, presumably the result of the typical moult of these reptiles, wrapped around a much larger snake. A instant photo of a moment of life of the snakes of antiquity.
Foto: Yi Liu
The findings provide the first tangible evidence of the existence of these reptiles in the forests early in their evolution, at a time when a huge variety of dinosaurs thrived (other snake fossils of the same age have been found in deserts). And they also help show how snakes developed and spread around the world.
For the puppy found in amber, life must not have been very generous, however: finding it in the fossil implies that at the beginning of its life (and it is not even clear whether it is a newborn or even an embryo) it has probably found itself already immersed in the tree sap.
In fact, amber is a resin originating from the secretions of plants belonging to extinct species and which has undergone a process of fossilization: it is therefore in those secretions that the poor puppy will have found himself "entangled".
It is possible that the sap produced by the plants of the time was secreted in large quantities and "flooded" the forest, collecting everything from insects to other plants, but also the baby snake. The "collection", however terrible for the animal, today provides us with other useful information on the ecosystem where the little one lived.
Paleontologists have named this species Xiaophis myanmarensis, which means "Myanmar dawn snake", and published the work in Science Advances.
Read also:
- Fossil remains of ancient giant bats discovered in New Zealand
- Dinosaurs also had dandruff - found on fossils 125 million years ago
- 100 million year old flowers perfectly preserved in amber
Roberta de carolis
Cover photo: Ming Bai/Chinese Academy of Sciences
