47-million-year-old Python Fossil Found in Europe

Paleontologists have identified four fossilized snake skeletons as belonging to a new species of ancient python. At roughly 47 million years old, the specimens are the oldest python fossils ever found, a discovery which has reconfigured the evolutionary tree of these serpents, reports Katherine Kornei for the New York Times. The new find pushes the origins of pythons back some 20 million years, according to a paper published earlier this month in the journal Biology Letters.

The fossils emerged from Germany’s Messel Pit, a former shale mine that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fossil bed is famous for providing a window into the evolution of early mammals during the Eocene (57 to 36 million years ago).

Discovering this early python, named Messelopython freyi, in Europe suggests the serpents may have first evolved in the Northern Hemisphere rather than in the Southern Hemisphere where most of their living relatives are found today, reports Laura Geggel for Live Science. Read the free article.