<p>The snake is one of the animals most exploited by science fiction, mythology or legends. Ignorance, mixed with the mystery distilled by this creature, have made it the perfect target for thousands of speculations on its origin and evolution.</p>
<p>But little by little, and returning to the plane of reality, these unknowns are being resolved thanks to paleontological research focused on knowing more about this animal. The last one, a study published in the journal Nature Comunications, dates the first known snake 167 million years old (almost 70 million years older than the fossils known until now).</p>
<p>It is a discovery of the remains of three different species, with a flat body, flattened skull and in the shape of an arrow, curved jaws...until now everything was normal. But what misled paleontologists and made these remains were not considered as the ancestors of snakes was the presence of four small limbs. Quadruped snakes.</p>
<p>The legs were considered characteristic of other reptiles, such as the chimera or the dragon and the axial skeleton was taken as essential to be able to speak of snakes.</p>
<p>But the research (carried out by doctors Michael Caldwell, professor at the University of Alberta, Canada; Randall Nydman, Midwestern University in Arizona; Alessandro Palci, South Australian Museum and Sebastian Apesteguía, Maimonides University of Buenos Aires) rebels that what really characterizes a snake as such is its cranial structure, so we can say that the evolution of these animals began before they lost their legs and became the creatures we know today.</p>
<p>This hypothesis helps to solve one of the unknowns surrounding the evolution of snakes: Before the discovery of these oldest fossils, the first evidence of snakes was a simultaneous appearance in different parts of the planet. But now, dating them as animals 167 million years old, their origin lies in the Pangea (when all the land masses that now make up the continents were still united in one), so there is no longer any talk of a spontaneous generation.</p>
<p>From this it can be seen that "snakes have an evolutionary origin much more complex than was thought", as Caldwell stated in a lecture at his university. Understanding that the distinctive element of snakes is the skull and not their body, one can speak of specimens that may seem even more similar to other types of reptiles than to snakes.</p>