A small snake preserved in Brazilian sandstone carried a skull unusually well suited to life underground. Its dense, overlapping bones and distinctive internal anatomy suggest that burrowing snakes were already specialized during the age of dinosaurs.
Named Tametara mirim, the animal lived approximately 85 million to 75 million years ago. An international team led by Annie Hsiou at the University of São Paulo, Tiago Simões at Princeton University, and Nicolas Di-Poï at the University of Helsinki described it in Nature.
The fossil provides evidence of early snake ecological diversity, rather than settling their origin. Its anatomy differs sharply from that of another ancient snake, Dinilysia patagonica. Together, they show why one fossil species cannot stand in for the ancestral lifestyle of all snakes.
The research received support from FAPESP, São Paulo’s research funding agency.