It Wasn't a Snake, but It Had Fangs Like One

Buried in the rocks of Scotland's Isle of Skye, scientists have uncovered a 167-million-year-old reptile with snakelike fangs, revealing a surprising new branch in the ancient family tree of lizards and snakes. The well-preserved fossil, among the most complete Jurassic lizard fossils discovered to date, has been identified as a new species of parviraptorid dubbed Breugnathair elgolensis—Gaelic for "false snake of Elgol," per the BBC. Elgol refers to the southern part of Skye where the fossil was discovered in 2016 by Dr. Stig Walsh of National Museums Scotland, which now houses the fossil in its national collection, per the Independent.

The reptile had backward-curving, snakelike fangs and jaws similar to those of modern pythons, but still retained the limbs and body proportions of a lizard. This unique mix offers new insight into the evolutionary link between ancient lizardlike reptiles and modern snakes. Dr. Roger Benson of the American Museum of Natural History, lead author of a Nature study on the find, notes that while B. elgolensis had jaws and teeth reminiscent of snakes, its overall structure was more primitive. This could suggest snake ancestors were quite unlike what scientists previously expected, or it may indicate that such features developed in a now-extinct lineage of predatory reptiles.