The discovery in Brazil fossil of a snake with four legs, single specimen suggests that the ancestors of these reptiles had a terrestrial origin and not navy, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science . The new species, dubbed Tetrapodophis amplectus living in the early Cretaceous period between 146 and 100 million years, has many physiological traits similar to those of modern snakes (short snout, elongated skull, scales, hooked teeth, very flexible jaw swallowing large prey). This reptile also had a vertebral structure similar to that of its modern descendants that allows extreme flexibility to suffocate its prey by squeezing them.
The only major difference in Tetrapodophis with the modern snakes are four legs that apparently , were not used to move but to seize prey or during coupling. The authors of this study also noted the absence of typical long tail of aquatic reptiles such as alligators, supporting the hypothesis that snakes are not descended from aquatic ancestors. These investigators analyzed the particular genetic and morphological characteristics of Tetrapodophis they compared with those of other known species of snakes.
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