News Paleontology

Museum fossil links snakes to lizards

Four-legged specimen suggests serpents evolved first on land

MISSING LINK  A fossil of a four-legged snake (shown in this illustration) offers evidence that snakes evolved from lizards.

Julius T. Cstonyi

By Meghan Rosen

- More than 2 years ago

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The worldwide hunt for a fossil link between snakes and lizards has succeeded — in a museum.

The fossil, of a four-legged snake, hints that the ancestors of modern-day snakes may have evolved on land rather than at sea, researchers report in the July 24 Science.