Paleontologists have identified four fossilized snake skeletons as belonging to a new species of ancient python. At roughly 47 million years old, the specimens are the oldest python fossils ever found, a discovery which has reconfigured the evolutionary tree of these serpents, reports Katherine Kornei for the New York Times. The new find pushes the origins of pythons back some 20 million years, according to a paper published earlier this month in the journal Biology Letters.

A newly described python species named Messelopython freyi. The 47-million-year-old specimen is the world’s oldest known fossil record of a python.

The fossils emerged from Germany’s Messel Pit, a former shale mine that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fossil bed is famous for providing a window into the evolution of early mammals during the Eocene (57 to 36 million years ago).

Discovering this early python, named Messelopython freyi, in Europe suggests the serpents may have first evolved in the Northern Hemisphere rather than in the Southern Hemisphere where most of their living relatives are found today, reports Laura Geggel for Live Science.

Messelopython freyi was around 3.2 feet long and had some 275 vertebrae, according to the paper. Apart from highlighting the possibility that pythons first evolved in Europe, the find may also have interesting implications for when and why pythons and their slithering cousins boa constrictors may have diverged.

In the modern world, boas and pythons do not naturally occur together anywhere on Earth despite their similar appearances and shared predilection for squeezing the life out of their prey. But back in the Eocene it seems boas and pythons must have competed for the same prey, since the remains of both have been found in the Messel Pit.

“In Messel, both Messelopython freyi as well as primitive boas such as Eoconstrictor fischeri lived together in the same ecosystem—we therefore have to revisit the thesis that these two groups of snakes competed with each other, making them unable to share the same habitats,”

> At roughly 47 million years old, the specimens are the oldest python fossils ever found

It certainly would be.

> The fossils emerged from Germany’s Messel Pit

That’s still going? Excellent.

“Brown coal and later oil shale was actively mined from 1859. The pit first became known for its wealth of fossils around 1900, but serious scientific excavation only started around the 1970s”

“A brief summary of some of the fossils found at the site follows:

• Early primate fossils
• Nine mating pairs of fossil turtles
• Over 10,000 fossilized fish of numerous species
• Thousands of aquatic and terrestrial insects, some with distinct coloration still preserved
• Innumerable small mammals including pygmy horses, large mice, primates, ground dwellers (hedgehogs, marsupials, pangolins), aardvark relatives and bats.
• Large numbers of birds, particularly predatory species.
• Crocodiles, frogs, turtles, salamanders and other reptiles or amphibians
• Remains of over 30 distinct plant species, including palm leaves, fruits, pollen, wood, walnuts and grapevines

“the Messel Pit is believed to have been geologically and tectonically active during the Eocene. It is hypothesized that events much like the 1986 volcanic gas releases at Lake Nyos, Cameroon, could account for the large deposition of non-aquatic species.”

There are still 5 in existence.

bucolic3401 said:

There are still 5 in existence.

They are getting on a bit.