Dino-eating snake fossil unearthed
02 Mar 10
An almost complete fossil skeleton of an 11ft prehistoric snake that preyed on baby dinosaurs has been discovered by scientists.
The reptile's body was unearthed from a dinosaur nest in Gujarat, western India, coiled around a recently hatched and crushed egg.
An 18in fossil of a hatchling titanosaur - a plant-eating giant lizard that could weigh up to 100 tonnes when grown up - was found next to the fossil of the snake, named Sanajeh Indicus.
Scientists also found the remains of two other snakes alongside dinosaur eggs at the same site. The fossils are believed to be around 67 million years old.
The reptile did not have wide-open jaws like modern-age snakes such as pythons and boa constrictors, which did not allow it to swallow the giant eggs in their entirety, but it would have been able to eat a baby dinosaur comfortably, researchers said.
Dr Jason Head, from the University of Toronto in Canada, who led a study reported in the online journal PLoS One, said: "Living primitive snakes are small animals whose diet is limited by their jaw size.
"This is the first direct evidence of feeding behaviour in a fossil primitive snake, and shows us that the ecology and early evolutionary history of snakes were much more complex."
Copyright © Press Association 2010
http://www.plosone.org/home.action (PLoS One)
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