News Paleontology

Snakes crawled among Jurassic dinosaurs, new timeline says

Fossils indicate flexible skulls, not legless bodies, make snakes snakes

Snake illustration

ANCIENT SNAKE  The earliest known snakes, like this one swimming in a lake in this illustration, lived during the Jurassic Period, a new study suggests.

Julius Csotonyi

By Kate Baggaley

- More than 2 years ago

Just call it the Jura-sssss-ic Period. Newly identified fossils suggest that snakes slithered through much of the golden age of the dinosaurs, a finding that pushes back the fossil record for snakes by 70 million years.