Cretaceous Blind Snake from Brazil Fills Major Gap in Snake Evolution

Thiago Schineider Fachini; Silvio Onary; Alessandro Palci; Michael S Y Lee; Mario Bronzati; Annie Schmaltz Hsiou

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101834

Cretaceous Blind Snake from Brazil Fills Major Gap in Snake Evolution

iScience. 2020 Nov 20;23(12):101834. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101834. eCollection 2020 Dec 18.

Authors

Thiago Schineider Fachini¹, Silvio Onary^{1

2

3}, Alessandro Palci^{2

3}, Michael S Y Lee^{2

3}, Mario Bronzati⁴, Annie Schmaltz Hsiou¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratório de Paleontologia, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil.
² College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia.
³ South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
⁴ Laboratório de Evolução e Biologia Integrativa, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil.

Abstract

Blind snakes (Scolecophidia) are minute cryptic snakes that diverged at the base of the evolutionary radiation of modern snakes. They have a scant fossil record, which dates back to the Upper Paleocene-Lower Eocene (∼56 Ma); this late appearance conflicts with molecular evidence, which suggests a much older origin for the group (during the Mesozoic: 160-125 Ma). Here we report a typhlopoid blind snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil, Boipeba tayasuensis gen. et sp. nov, which extends the scolecophidian fossil record into the Mesozoic and reduces the fossil gap predicted by molecular data. The new species is estimated to have been over 1 m long, much larger than typical modern scolecophidians (<30 cm). This finding sheds light on the early evolution of blind snakes, supports the hypothesis of a Gondwanan origin for the Typhlopoidea, and indicates that early scolecophidians had large body size, and only later underwent miniaturization.

Keywords: Animals; Evolutionary History; Paleobiology; Paleontology; Phylogenetics; Systematics.