Oldest Snake on Record Ever! 99million Year Old Baby Snake Found in Amber.

wow, i love science! this is so kooool!!

remember how in Jurassic Park, they were able to clone Dinosaurs from blood found in a mosquito encased in ancient amber? well over the last few years they have been discoveries of ancient snake skin and a 99million snake. CT scans have confirmed that it was a baby snake. i wonder if it had a chance to eat before it wound up in amber and got frozen for the last 5 million scores so that we could extract prey DNA to clone like they did in JP.

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...ffc5-jumbo.jpg

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/s...ke-fossil.html

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Baby Snake Fossil Found Trapped in Amber Offers Clues on Evolution
In 2016, Lida Xing was combing the amber markets of Myanmar when a merchant enticed him over to his booth with what he said was the skin of a crocodile trapped in amber. When Dr. Xing inspected the specimen through its honey-colored encasement and noticed the diamond-shaped pattern of its scales, he realized what he was holding was actually a 99-million-year-old snakeskin.

Dr. Xing, who is a paleontologist from the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, had previously recovered a feathered dinosaur tail and a baby bird in the amber markets. But he said that of the hundreds of thousands of amber pieces discovered in the area, no one had ever before found a snake.


He purchased the snakeskin and set up a meeting with Michael Caldwell, a snake paleontologist at the University of Alberta. A few minutes before Dr. Xing boarded his flight to Canada, a different colleague alerted him to another recently discovered snake specimen that was more amazing than the first: entombed in a silver-dollar-sized chunk of amber was a baby snake.


“The fossil is the first baby snake and the oldest baby snake to yet be found,” said Dr. Xing. Before this finding, paleontologists had not uncovered a fossilized baby snake even in the rock fossil record, said Dr. Caldwell.
Dr. Xing and Dr. Caldwell reported their findings from the two specimens on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. The work provides insight into the evolution of snakes, their early-stage anatomical development and their prehistoric spread across the globe.


Only the bottom half of the baby snake’s sinuous body was preserved in the amber, which is fossilized tree resin. Because the skull was missing, the people who found the fossil thought the tiny creature inside was either a centipede or millipede.
The researchers determined the fossilized snake was either an embryo or a newborn based on the development of its spinal cord. Like modern baby snakes, the preserved baby had tiny vertebral bones but a large spinal cord tube, according to Dr. Caldwell. That’s a telltale sign that the snake was still developing, as well as the first direct evidence that the developmental processes seen in a baby snake’s spine were established at least about 100 million years ago and have remained relatively unchanged since then.
The researchers could not say whether or not the shed snakeskin belonged to the same species as the baby snake.


Ryan McKellar, a paleontologist from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada and an author on the paper, said the fossilized snakeskin was trapped along with plants, cockroaches and insect droppings. Those clues indicated that the ancient snake lived in the forest. That may seem like a likely locale for a slithering snake, but before this discovery, paleontologists did not have direct evidence of snakes living in forests during the Mesozoic Era.
Scientists aren’t sure where snakes originated from and how they spread throughout the world. The new specimens offer clues for one potential pathway for their prehistoric movement around the planet, said Dr. McKellar.


Some 100 million years ago when the snakes became trapped in tree resin, Myanmar was part of a migrating island between present-day Asia and Australia. That island eventually floated to the coast of Laurasia, a supercontinent that then included present-day Europe and Asia.


“These snakes would have been along for the ride,” he said.

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this article has pix of some of the CT scans: https://www.zmescience.com/science/s...ossil-81342341

Super cool stuff! Thanks for sharing!

So cool, thanks for sharing. My head is still in Jurassic park mode too lol

So this may surprise some of you, but maybe not...
I've never seen Jurassic Park...
Yup, it's true.

I read this earlier so interesting


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Avsha531

So cool, thanks for sharing. My head is still in Jurassic park mode too lol

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me too! esp. b/c i've been playing the game on my phone and collecting dino's!

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

So this may surprise some of you, but maybe not...
I've never seen Jurassic Park...
Yup, it's true.

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lol wut?!! ok u need to grab Tyson or Juice and Netflix and chill JP ASAP! the first one is like a perfect movie!

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Originally Posted by Ax01

the first one is like a perfect movie!

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Emphasis on the first one lol but once you start most likely you will binge. First 3 are on Netflix, no excuses!

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Originally Posted by Ax01

lol wut?!! ok u need to grab Tyson or Juice and Netflix and chill JP ASAP! the first one is like a perfect movie!

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Originally Posted by Avsha531

Emphasis on the first one lol but once you start most likely you will binge. First 3 are on Netflix, no excuses!

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Yup, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars....never seen any of them.

I promised my brother I would watch Harry Potter with him, eventually.


Buuuut, since my boy Ax says Jurassic Park is basically a perfect movie, I may give it a try on my next day off. No promises though.

Craig, Ax is a girl..........

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

Craig, Ax is a girl..........

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You sure about that?