Fossil Shows Primitive Snake Had Hind Legs

Paleontologists say they have found the first compelling fossil evidence that long ago, snakes grew legs. In a reappraisal of fossils from a limestone quarry in Israel, paleontologists identified specimens, previously thought to be a lizard species, as the most primitive known snake - so primitive that it still has short but well-developed hind limbs. This slender, 3-foot-long snake, Pachyrhachis problematicus, lived in a shallow sea some 95 million years ago.

The discovery, being reported today in the journal Nature, could be a significant step in determining the origin of snakes, which has been obscured by a frustratingly skimpy fossil record, and tracing their evolutionary history. Not only does it enable scientists to prove that early snakes did have legs, like other reptiles, but perhaps to establish more clearly their relationship to the wider order of lizards, one of the unsolved mysteries of evolution.