99 million years ago, a new kind of snake was found in amber.

The legendary amber producing area-Hugang Valley, Kachin State, northern Myanmar, once again heard "new knowledge". An international scientific team composed of scientists from China, Canada, the United States and Australia recently discovered a snake specimen for the first time in two pieces of amber produced here, and revealed a previously unknown species.

The research results were published in the American journal Science Progress 19.

These two pieces of amber are about 99 million years old, including a snake bone the size of a small lemon. Compared with other vertebrate fossils, snake fossils are extremely rare. Scientists have never found snakes in amber before. Early snake fossils are relatively fragmented and provide little information, such as the Anshi Liming snake 654.38+67 million years ago.

Myanmar snake restoration map. Draw Liu Yi.

"Another specimen is amber containing snakeskin. Comparatively speaking, amber containing snake bones is more important. " Xing Lida, an associate professor of China Geo University (Beijing), who initiated the research, said that the team of China Geo University (Beijing) and the scientific team of "Stone Exploration" discovered them successively in early 20 16, and then made a detailed three-dimensional anatomical structure with micro-CT.

The results show that this continuous snake bone is 4.75 cm long, including about 97 vertebrae, some ribs and skin. These vertebrae are very small, and the smallest single coccyx is only about 0.35 mm long. Its size and shape indicate that it is probably a young snake that has just "broken its shell".

Scientists named it Burmese loach. The word "Xiao" is to pay tribute to the lady who found this piece of amber. She is the co-founder of Stone Exploration and an amber expert. "In addition, Xiao is homophonic with Xiao, which not only shows its tiny posture, but also implies the primitiveness of this snake." Dr. Rui Chen, one of the researchers in China, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the founder of Stone Exploration, said. Stone exploration is a natural history and popular science team composed of young doctoral scientists.

Burmese snake and its corresponding CT reconstruction. Photography Bai Ming

Xing Lida pointed out that the most important value of "Xiao snake" has three points: first, the newborn snake found in amber for the first time makes people understand the development of ancient snakes; Second, its skeleton type is very special, and it is a brand-new species different from all previous snakes; Thirdly, these specimens show that ancient snakes once lived in forests on the edge of the ocean, which means that the ecological diversity of early snakes exceeded previous cognition.

Snakes are one of the most successful carnivores in nature today, and they are found all over the world. Its history with human beings is full of mysterious and supernatural colors, and it is the source of inspiration for various imaginations and metaphors such as art and religion. But at present, paleontologists can only rely on fossils to piece together a "stick figure": the ancestors of snakes can be traced back to the Angel Dawn Snake in the Middle Jurassic, and snakes have been distributed all over the world from the early Late Cretaceous (about 654.38 billion to 95 million years).

"As an ancient newborn, its structure preserves the unique details of the individual development of snake bones, such as the bone spurs in its vertebrae, which may be to protect the arteries running through the tail and stabilize the trunk." Xing Lida pointed out that this feature may be accompanied by snakes gradually learning to walk without legs, "but this feature no longer exists in modern snakes."

At present, the snake fossils found in southern Europe, Africa, North America, the Middle East and South America are all mature snakes. Therefore, the newborn "Little Snake" 99 million years ago fills an important link in the evolutionary clue-the characteristics of its young snake can be described as "unprecedented" in snake fossils.

So, what kind of snake is "Xiao Snake"? The answer may be: it is one of the ancestors of modern snakes, an ancient snake known from Cretaceous fossils-Gondwana snake, an unprecedented new species. Compared with the earlier Jurassic period, Gondwana ancient snake may be the earliest snake that people can trace back to exactly, and modern snake (crown group) is one of the branches of this evolution.

Professor Randall Needham of Midwest University, one of the researchers, said: "Its back skull is similar to the most primitive Gondwana fossil snakes, such as cunning snakes, fear snakes, ancient fissure snakes and modern snakes (crown group), but it does not belong to any of them."

He added: "I think Burmese snakes are between the backbone group of Gondwana fossil snakes and modern snakes (crown group), which shows that they are one of the ancestors of modern snakes."

Think about it, those serpents and pythons in ancient mythology are not groundless. The serpents who can swallow the elephant and fly into a rage can be traced back to the age of dinosaurs. However, anyone who sees this little Burmese snake can hardly imagine how this snake has developed step by step to this day.

"If the specimen is complete, the length of the amber snake is about 9.5 cm." Bai Ming, one of the Chinese researchers and an associate researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that both amber pieces are rich in insects, insect droppings and plant residues, which provide a unique record of the forest ecosystem-the "shed" lives in a humid and warm tropical rain forest ecosystem with fresh water habitats, and some forests should be close to the coastline.

Xing Lida, Michael Caldwell, Randall Needham and Bai Ming are in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"From the perspective of paleogeography, Burmese snakes lived in the island arc system of South Gondwana, and later became a part of the eastern margin of Lauya continent." Professor Michael Caldwell of university of alberta pointed out that this clearly shows that snakes have been distributed in all latitudes at least 6,543.8 billion years ago.

Interestingly, it used to be thought that snakes had completely different habits in land and aquatic environments. However, the discovery of "small snakes" shows that the diversity of snakes in land and aquatic environments is unexpected by scientists. Professor Michael Caldwell hypothesized: "Burmese snakes may have evolved from aquatic snakes and later migrated to the island land environment of foreign plots."

"The discovery of Burmese snakes is of great research value for studying the global distribution of early snakes." He said.

The research result is the crystallization of teamwork, and its members include Xing Lida, Michael Caldwell, Rui Chen and Bai Ming, as well as Ye Liu and Dr. Randall Needham from Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor mike leigh from South Australia Museum, Dr. Alexander Palci, Dr. Shi Hongliang from Beijing Forestry University, and Wang Kuan from Stone Exploration Science Team.