Strange Jurassic Reptiles is a strange mixture of snakes and lizards

When excavation scientists have many clues only to infer an original fossil form, it is very easy to make honest mistakes. Sometimes, the supposed reasonable assumptions are the researchers on the wrong path – as shown by the “re -discovered” creature that earns an unlikely mixture of reptile features.

A nature A paper published today presented to the world Breugnathair ElgalensisCreated reptiles from the Jurassic era with the short body and jaco ends. But like its name, the gaeliya for the “wrong snake of the ELGOL” is similar to its jaws and square teeth that exist in the modern era. This combination was so impossible that when fossil fossil scientists discovered for the first time in 2015, they of course assumed that the bone group belonged to separate animals.

Redument places Breugnathair In a group of extinct peers – arrangement of reptiles including lizards and snakes – called Parviraptoridae. This same group was known to be mysterious to excavation scientists, as most “individuals” in the group were consisting of fragmented fossils with unidentified pieces, according to researchers.

Reconsidering the fossil

For the study, the researchers made a set of 3D imaging techniques and surveyed X -rays to create a detailed reconstruction of the excavation. They also assembled a family tree compared to the use of three independent data collections on the genetic information of the early reptiles, the costumes, and a sub -scale group including snakes, monitoring lizards, and Agwana.

From their analysis, they collected a full skeleton of a strange hybrid creature with the effects of both lizards and snakes. The resulting creature, which is about 16 inches from head to tail, looked strange but technically logical. “The apparent individual individual is real Parviraptorid,” wrote the Gammam Zahr, the world of excavation at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, in accompanying News and opinions.

Slinky origins

On the one hand, it raises dangerous questions about our understanding of the origin of the snakes. Zahr explained that the consensus was that the snakes separated from the creatures similar to lizards, although the exact evolutionary path “is still completely understood.”

To be clear, the authors of the paper do not suggest that snakes develop Breugnathair. The size of the reptiles was relatively large compared to other similar types at the time, so it is possible that the smaller lizards or small dinosaurs are likely to prey. whether Breugnathair It is an eccentric game or a creature that reflects some of the largest trends in the genetic history of snakes. Researchers cannot be sure.

“Breugnathair It has snake -like features of teeth and jaws, but in other ways, it is amazingly primitive. statement. “This might tell us that the ancestors of the snake were completely different (from) what we expected, or it might instead is evidence that the predators that resemble snakes have evolved separately in an extinct primitive group.”

“The primitive and specialized features that we find in PARVIRAPTORIDS, as it becomes clear from this new sample, is an important reminder that the evolutionary paths can be unexpected,” Susan Evans, the author participating in the study and excavation specialist at the University of London University in the United Kingdom, explained in the same version.

“These fossils make us far, but this does not get the road,” Benson added. “However, it makes us more enthusiastic about the possibility of knowing where the snakes come from.”