Tag: reptile

Almost-Living Fossils Month #14 – Ancient Snakes

While the evolutionary origin of snakes is still rather poorly understood, one very early branch of their lineage – known as the madtsoiids – were a particularly long-lived group.

Originating back in the mid-Cretaceous (~100 mya), these “primitive” snakes were found mostly in the southern continents of Gondwana (known from South America, Africa, India, and Australia), but a few also spread into Europe. They were either some of the earliest true snakes or perhaps ophidians very closely related to them, and may have retained small hindlimbs that were slightly more well-developed than the vestigal ones of some modern snakes.

They ranged in length from under 1m (3′3″) to at least 7m (23′), with biggest of them rivaling some of the very largest living snakes in size.

They would have been similar to pythons, non-venomous and relying on constriction to kill their prey, although they had less flexible skulls than their modern relatives and couldn’t easily swallow animals much larger than their own heads. At least some of the Cretaceous species would have preyed on smaller dinosaurs, with one fossil even preserving a mid-sized madtsoiid in a sauropod nest alongside a hatchling.

Although the madtsoiids survived the end-Cretaceous extinction quite well and kept going throughout most of their range for the first half of the Cenozoic, most of them eventually disappeared in the Eocene-Oligocene extinction about 33 million years ago.

Aside from a single possible Late Olgiocene/Early Miocene record from South America (~29-21 mya), after that point the madtsoiids were found only in Australia, where they persisted almost into modern times.

Wonambi naracoortensis was one of the last of the Australian madtsoiids, living from the mid-Miocene (~11 mya) to at least the Late Pleistocene (~40,000 years ago). It was also one of the larger members of the group, 5-6m long (16′5″-19′8″), and seems to have been an ambush predator that lurked around waterholes to catch drinking animals.

The last madtsoiids went extinct at the same time as many of the other Australian megafauna, and it’s not clear exactly what caused them to die out. Humans had arrived in Australia about 20,000 years earlier, and hunting – either directly targeting the large snakes, or simply gradually reducing their available prey – combined with a changing climate may have been too much for them to handle.

Almost-Living Fossils Month #05 – Cryptic Choristoderes

The choristoderes were a group of aquatic reptiles that mostly inhabited freshwater environments. Known mainly from North America, Europe, and Asia, they first appeared in the fossil record in the Late Triassic (~205 mya) – although their lineage could potentially go back further than that – and they varied in appearance from large long-snouted croc-like creatures to more lizard-like and miniature plesiosaur-like forms.

Many them were fully aquatic and spent their entire lives in the water, with some developing the ability to give live birth and others returning to land only to lay eggs (with only females having well-developed enough limbs to be able to haul themselves out onto shore). In some places their fossils are incredibly common, with every life stage represented from babies to adults (even one with two heads!), and yet despite having such detailed knowledge of their lives we still don’t know exactly what type of reptile they actually were.

Their evolutionary origins and relationships are very unclear, with the only real certainly being that they’re at least diapsids. They’re often classified as either archosauromorphs (closer related to crocodilians and dinosaurs/birds) or as lepidosauromorphs (closer related to lizards), but they could also be a much earlier separate branch of the reptile family tree.

Some of the large crocodilian-like neochoristoderes survived into the Cenozoic and initially did quite well for themselves – even outcompeting actual crocodilians in the northern continents for a while – but then they seem to have fallen victim to the cooling and drying climate of the Eocene-Oligocene extinction about 33 million years ago.

But that wasn’t the end of the choristodere lineage just yet.

A small number of fossils of a little choristodere named Lazarussuchus have been found in a few different places around Europe, with the youngest specimens dating to as recently as the Early Miocene (~20-16 mya). Surprisingly it wasn’t closely related to the neochoristoderes at all, but instead seems to have been part of a much older and more “primitive” branch of the choristodere family tree that must have been surviving since at least the mid-Jurassic with very little presence in the fossil record.

At about 30cm long (1′) it was less aquatic than most other choristoderes, with large claws that would have given it good traction on land and a more generalized lizard-like body plan. One specimen even preserves soft tissue impressions, showing that its toes lacked webbing and that it had a low crest running along its tail.

Its lack of specialization may have been the reason for its longer survival, being able to adapt to a wider variety of environments compared to its more water-reliant cousins.

It’s unclear exactly how much closer to present day these rare last choristoderes survived. If they managed to make it through the mid-Miocene extinction then they might potentially have persisted until the onset of the Pleistocene Ice Age 2.5 million years ago – but their fossils are scarce enough that we’ll probably never know for certain.

Xinpusaurus

Thalattosaurs were a weird and rather mysterious group of Triassic marine reptiles. It’s not clear where they actually fit on the reptile evolutionary tree (we know they’re diapsids, but nobody can really agree on anything more definite than that), and they had some very strange skulls that seem to have been highly specialized for something, although their actual function is still unknown.

Xinpusaurus kohi here is known from the Late Triassic of China (~232-221 mya). About 1.3m long (4′3″), with half of that being its paddle-like tail, it had an elongated upper jaw that formed a protruding pointed spear-shaped snout.

It’s not clear whether this odd snoot was an adaptation for hunting similar to the long bills of swordfish – there’s quite a bit of variation in length and shape between different individual specimens – or if it was serving some other purpose like the sexually dimorphic noses of some modern lizards.

Barbaturex

Barbaturex morrisoni, a large herbivorous lizard which lived about 40-37 million years ago during the Eocene. Known from Myanmar in Southeast Asia, it’s estimated to have reached lengths of 1.4-1.8m (4′7″-5′10″) and was closely related to modern spiny-tailed lizards.

It had a row of bony knobs along the edges of its lower jaw, which may have supported some sort of display structure. I’ve given it some fleshy double-dewlaps here, and a spiky tail similar to its relatives, but since it’s only known from fragmentary fossils these features are pretty speculative.

Surprisingly Barbaturex was much bigger than a lot of the herbivorous ungulate mammals around at the time, and was also larger than most of the local carnivores – a very different situation to modern ecosystems, where even the biggest plant-eating lizards are still smaller than ungulates.

Nicrosaurus

Nicrosaurus kapffi from the Late Triassic of Germany, about 221-205 million years ago. Although rather crocodile-like in appearance, this 4-6m long (13′-19′8″) animal was actually part of an extinct group called phytosaurs – long-snouted heavily-armored reptiles with their nostrils high up on their heads near their eyes.

Phytosaurs’ exact evolutionary relationships are still disputed, with opinions currently going back and forth between them being archosauriformes or an early branch of the croc lineage within the true archosaurs. But either way they weren’t directly ancestral to modern crocodilians, and instead developed a very similar body plan via convergent evolution.

While some phytosaurs had very slender gharial-like snouts and probably fed mostly on fish, others like Nicrosaurus had much more robust jaws and seem to have secondarily adapted to a terrestrial predator lifestyle. They had longer limbs and a more upright posture than their semi-aquatic relatives, and enlarged fangs at the hooked tips of their jaws that may have been used to deliver a powerful stabbing blow to their prey.

Nicrosaurus also had a raised bony crest running along its snout, which I’ve depicted here as supporting an even larger soft-tissue display structure.

Eudibamus

Eudibamus cursoris, a bolosaurid from the Early Permian of Germany (~284-279 mya).

Although very lizard-like in appearance, this animal was actually part of a completely extinct group known as parareptiles – a diverse group of early sauropsids who were once thought to be the ancestors of turtles, but are now considered to instead be the evolutionary cousins to the true reptiles.

With a total length of about 25cm long (8-10″), the structure and proportions of its limbs suggest it could run fast on its hind legs, making it one of the earliest known examples of bipedal locomotion. Since its teeth were adapted for a herbivorous diet, it wasn’t using its speed to chase down prey but was instead probably sprinting away from predators.

But unlike the sprawling running of some modern lizards, Eudibamus may have been capable of holding its legs in a more upright position directly under its body, convergently evolving a more energy-efficient posture similar to that of later bipedal animals like dinosaurs.

Sclerocormus

Sclerocormus parviceps, an unusual ichthyosauriform from the Early Triassic of China (~248 mya).

Its short toothless snout suggests it was a suction feeder, using water pressure differences to pull small soft-bodied prey straight into its mouth like a syringe.  Along with a heavily built body similar to those of hupehsuchians, and a very long tail that made up over half of its 1.6m length (5′3″), it was probably a fairly slow swimmer living in shallow coastal waters.

It was a close relative of Cartorhynchus, and may have been similarly capable of hauling itself onto land like a modern pinniped.

Colobomycter

Colobomycter pholeter, a parareptile from the Early Permian of Oklahoma, USA (~289 mya). Although known only from partial skull fossils, its full size was probably around 30cm long (1′).

It had huge fangs at the front of its jaws, along with a few other enlarged teeth further back, all with serrated edges that show it was clearly a predator. What exactly it was feeding on with this unusual tooth arrangement is unknown – but proposed ideas include piercing through hard-shelled arthropods, or stabbing into smaller vertebrate prey.

Bunostegos

Bunostegos akokanensis, from the Late Permian of Niger (~260 mya). About 2.5m long (8′2″), similar in size to a modern cow, it was a member of a group known as the pareiasaurs – stocky herbivorous reptile-relatives with osteoderm armor in their skin and knobbly bony nodules on their skulls.

The anatomy of its limb bones suggest it walked fully upright, with its legs held vertically under its body. This sort of posture has independently evolved multiple times in different tetrapod lineages, but Bunostegos is one of the earliest known examples.

Shringasaurus

Shringasaurus indicus, an archosauromorph reptile from the Middle Triassic of India (~247-242 mya). About 3-4m long (9′10″-13′1″), it was part of a group known as the allokotosaurs, specialized herbivores with lizard-like bodies, and was related to the strange long-beaked Teraterpeton.

Partial remains of about seven different Shringasaurus individuals of varying ages have been found, with several of them having large curving horns over their eyes convergently similar to those of the later ceratopsids. A couple of adult specimens lack horns entirely, suggesting the feature was sexually dimorphic with only the males developing ornamentation – a very rare arrangement among archosauromorphs, but similar to some horned mammals.