Posted on 09/18/2021 10:49:02 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The study, led by scientists at the University of Bath and including collaborators from Bristol, Cambridge and Germany, used fossils and analysed genetic differences between modern snakes to reconstruct snake evolution. The analyses helped to pinpoint the time that modern snakes evolved.
Their results show that all living snakes trace back to just a handful of species that survived the asteroid impact 66 million years ago, the same extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.
The authors argue that the ability of snakes to shelter underground and go for long periods without food helped them survive the destructive effects of the impact. In the aftermath, the extinction of their competitors – including Cretaceous snakes and the dinosaurs themselves – allowed snakes to move into new niches, new habitats and new continents.
Snakes then began to diversify, producing lineages like vipers, cobras, garter snakes, pythons, and boas, exploiting new habitats, and new prey. Modern snake diversity – including tree snakes, sea snakes, venomous vipers and cobras, and huge constrictors like boas and pythons – emerged only after the dinosaur extinction.
Fossils also show a change in the shape of snake vertebrae in the aftermath, resulting from the extinction of Cretaceous lineages and the appearance of new groups, including giant sea snakes up to 10 metres long...
The study also suggests that snakes began to spread across the globe around this time. Although the ancestor of living snakes probably lived somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, snakes first appear to have spread to Asia after the extinction.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
There are days I could go for that. :^)
Yeah, I read that comic too.
Aren’t ya bein’ kinda hard on the snakes?
Most logical cause: climate change.
I understand as Primates we have a natural aversion to snakes but there is no reason to be so mean.
Snakes have a natural and useful function in nature.
DemonRATs ... not so much.
Yes, your post is yet another example of Total Buffoonery.
No, they didn’t. Most dinos died within hours or days of the strike, and no dino fossils are found above that intermediate layer. Period.
I saw a Modern snake this morning while walking on a trail--an eastern copperhead, a fairly large one. It was just minding its own business and didn't bother me, and I didn't bother it. Snakes play a useful role in the ecosystem. Just because one snake fooled Eve into eating the forbidden fruit doesn't mean all snakes are guilty.
Most non-avian dinos died within hours of days of the strike...
The crafty ones will fall back on “Well, it’s not settled, but if we’re right, can we afford not to act?”
Good quibble.
I evolved into a horse.
Most snakes are carnivores.
That means their primary food source for several million years were those little muskrat thingies that human beings descended from.
true- they have an answer for everything- it’s hard to pin down a snakes in the grass like climate alarmists are-
Again you are wrong on this point there are clearly dino fossils way after the 60my layer
So.... the son of the morning star was an asteroid?
Askin’ 4 a friend.
Dinos did not die because of an asteroid. They drowned
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
*****************************************************
So before this I think they used to hop around like pogo sticks....
Nothing scientific here. No one was around to provide first hand verification so it was a SWAG at best or aliens.
I bet aliens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.