All Living Snakes Evolved From a Few Survivors of Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs

Modern Snakes Evolved From Few Survivors

All living snakes evolved from a handful of species that survived the giant asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and most other living things at the end of the Cretaceous. Credit: Joschua Knüppe

Research from the Milner Center for Evolution suggests modern snakes evolved from a handful of ancestors that survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

A new study suggests that all living snakes evolved from a handful of species that survived the giant asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and most other living things at the end of the Cretaceous. The authors say that this devastating extinction event was a form of ‘creative destruction’ that allowed snakes to diversify into new niches, previously filled by their competitors.

The research, published in Nature Communications, shows that snakes, today including almost 4000 living species, started to diversify around the time that an extra-terrestrial impact wiped out the dinosaurs and most other species on the planet.

The study, led by scientists at the University of Bath and including collaborators from Bristol, Cambridge, and Germany, used fossils and analyzed 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 meters long.

“It’s remarkable, because not only are they surviving an extinction that wipes out so many other animals, but within a few million years they are innovating, using their habitats in new ways,” said lead author and recent Bath graduate Dr. Catherine Klein, who now works at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in Germany.

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.

Dr. Nick Longrich, from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and the corresponding author, said: “Our research suggests that extinction acted as a form of ‘creative destruction’- by wiping out old species, it allowed survivors to exploit the gaps in the ecosystem, experimenting with new lifestyles and habitats.

“This seems to be a general feature of evolution — it’s the periods immediately after major extinctions where we see evolution at its most wildly experimental and innovative.

“The destruction of biodiversity makes room for new things to emerge and colonize new landmasses. Ultimately life becomes even more diverse than before.”

The study also found evidence for a second major diversification event around the time that the world shifted from a warm ‘Greenhouse Earth’ into a cold ‘Icehouse’ climate, which saw the formation of polar icecaps and the start of the Ice Ages.

The patterns seen in snakes hint at a key role for catastrophes — severe, rapid, and global environmental disruptions — in driving evolutionary change.

Reference: “Evolution and dispersal of snakes across the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction” by Catherine G. Klein, Davide Pisani, Daniel J. Field, Rebecca Lakin, Matthew A. Wills and Nicholas R. Longrich, 14 September 2021, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25136-y

24 Comments on "All Living Snakes Evolved From a Few Survivors of Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs"

  1. Not all but a lot of you science people think you’re so smart that you don’t believe in God or don’t need to or don’t think God is real deal just cuz a lot of you don’t believe what you can’t see. Well that’s why it’s called Faith people and God is real. Put your ego aside it’s really easy to believe in He that created all the Good Beautiful things in Earth. God Doesn’t make Mistakes.
    Mans decisions made the Good Beautiful bad n ugly. Man brought on all the suffering cuz of his greed and love of earthly things. Man makes mistakes. God will always forgive you of your mistakes. If you take the mark of the beast He will not forgive you for that You have to believe n have to go through Jesus to be to Be with God To Enter into His Kingdom and live forever instead of the fires of hell and eternal damnation and suffering

  2. Way to ruin the moment, Ed. Not everything has to fit inside your book.

  3. Nothing like staying on topic.

  4. Very cool article. It’s crazy what fantasic evolution can come from such a catastrophic event. I love reading about evolutionary circumstances that push species into new habitats and niches.

  5. Amen Ed.

  6. Science is Gods Law. I follow Jesus and Science. How? If The God of Science isn’t also The God of Religion(s) then there will be no overcoming the utter ignorance involved in taking ancient traditional allegory as literal modern fact. I was raised religious and anti-evolution. I became an atheist due to that very hypocrisy. Later on, I found the allegories in the Bible to be beautiful renditions from the human mind as an explanation for our physical reality. The teachings attributed to Jesus to be in line with Loving-Kindness for all. His teachings to be sound in moral judgment when applied appropriately. I now see no conflict. I am an agnostic follower of Jesus Christ and believe that science further explains The Gods’ Laws for our existence. The Baghavad Gita offers many beautiful interpretations of such scientific and spiritual laws. Both are one and the same. Science is Spiritual. The Creation accounts in Genesis cannot and no longer should be understood as literal. It is as sensible as saying that the world is flat because The Bible says “to the ends of the Earth” and “as far as East is from West” -assuming that there must be an inferred and exact measurement defining such distances Biblically. Remember that people were murdered for proposing the idea of a Heliocentric System!!! I say “No more!”. You evolved from a cell in the womb. You evolved from a child into an adult…( and if the rest of us are lucky)… your mind has hopefully joined in these stages. Evolution is in your body. Humans are evolving additional arteries in the arm- into adulthood now…it is observable. Ignorance of The Gods’ Scientific/Spiritual Law IS NO EXCUSE. Science is Gods Law. Thank you.

  7. God is a matter of faith. Science is just a formalised way of describing the world as it is. There is no contradiction in accepting science and belief in God. Personally, I am an atheist but I respect those of faith. It disturbs me when some if those who profess religion are unable to respect those who don’t share their perspective.

  8. Omg stop with the long winded fiction fairy stories. I am trying to enjoy factual real world science here!

    • Explain to me how the Big Bang is fact when scientists have no idea what it was or what caused it. True science is observable and repeatable in a laboratory. Evolution is not observable. No transitionary forms have been found that haven’t been immediately refuted by real science. Evolution is not science, it is a theory. The Big Bang is not science, it is a theory. God is not science, because he is beyond science. He created science so that we could understand and observe his beautiful universe with awe, not confusion. While we cannot prove God with science, we don’t need to, because he has already proven his existence with the Bible. Jesus Christ was a real person. He did in fact die on a roman cross and resurrect three days later, several dozen people saw him in his resurrected form. Explain to me how the most accurate historical record in history, more accurate than radio isotope dating and the fossil record, could be wrong about a fact as significant as the entire fate of mankind. I believe in God because of faith. I cannot prove Him with science, but I can prove His Word to be true with science. Others believe in the Big Bang also because of faith, because it is not science. We are all in the same boat, my friends, except mine is not sinking.

  9. Gator is last living dinosaur.meterorite did not kill the dinosaur .modern crocodilian is just a better dinosaur .spinosauridae is the crown group of dinosaur it’s a tyrannosaur which make tyrannosaur crown group of dinosaur .superior weaponry spinosauridaemesoeucrocodylia Makes them king of dinosaur I see no different from the gator to other animal were the better won make it and are alive today by the evolution model

    • Ummmm…crocodilians were alive at the same time as the dinosaurs…so how is a crocodile a dinosaur?

      • Dinosaur old chart dinosaur 230 million years old or popular chart. but there evidence they are 250 million years old .dinosaur is a crocodilian animal But there feature is more primitive than modern crocodilian . other crocodilian animal feature are allso more primitive than modern crocodilian like these none dinosaur dinosaurmorph dinosauriformies proterosuchus but these are crocodilian type animal the group scientific name is thecodont which mean crocodilian teeth all these animal share these feature crocodilian teeth .bird and lizard turtle do not have crocodilian teeth it’s unique to thecodont this is reason why maniraptoran archaeopteryx oviraptor velociraptor is a bird and is back up by other feature they are not dinosaur or thecodont.in the past they call dinosaur crocodilian because of the teeth.the true crocodilian the death roll thecodont is 200 million years old these true crocodilian is call mesoeucrocodylia .mesoeucrocodylia came from the dinosaur spinosauridae baryonyx spinosaurus .spinosauridae is true mesoeucrocodylia so you can call mesoeucrocodylia spinosauridae because it’s the same animal or same animal group .spinosauridae is about 150 million years old the first mesoeucrocodylia .mesoeucrocodylia is 200 million years old there is the problem the ancestor is younger but scientist can know spinosauridae is older because it is oldest 3 finger dinosaur the first tetanuran dinosaur because of this feature kink snout found in none tetanuran dinosaur 4 finger and 5 finger and allso none dinosaur proterosuchus the first thecodont .the kink is fish eating feature it’s lost advance dinosaur because they become only land animal .spinosauridae is only tetanuran with a kink snout .usual scientist choose advance feature when lost of main feature because of evolution . like the gator by the finger clearly it is not tetanuran dinosaur because it has 5 finger but it is like t.rex 2 finger .because they know its common in reptile evolution that they grow the finger back and gator has lacrimal foramen only found in advance dinosaur it’s in every tetanuran .and mesoeucrocodylia is younger than dinosaur so every thing is a go .that why bandit scientist use protosuchus type trick people as ancestor of modern crocodilian because they have same advance sprawl ankle which is advantage because they can bipedal and sprawl .dinosaur could not sprawl that why they can not climb trees there ankle is fuse and poor arm movement there arm design to grasp by the big thumb claw and it is still found in modern crocodilian all thou finger is short a quadrupedal feature .dinosaur is design for land that why they have fuse ankle and got rid crocodilian aquatic tail that found in first thecodont proterosuchus a semi aquatic animal these advance or land tail found in all tetanuran and one dwarf caiman of today.and this dwarf caiman is not a good swimmer which it does not need it live mostly on land it’s a land crocodilian.protosuchus and gator ankle is convergent evolution they are not closely related .protosuchus is allready is a dinosaur it’s in very primitive dinosaur group they lack lacrimal foramen and Cingulum teeth a standard feature of tetanuran it is close to triceratops group because of lack Cingulum teeth later triceratops group have Cingulum teeth protosuchus is not death roll animal like spinosauridae they lack all the feature .

        • I made a mistake bandit scientist mean bird are not dinosaur I should have said badit scientist which mean bird are dinosaur . Any way lost of fourth trochanter or proterosuchus type ankle or shorter hip than tetanuran and lack of sacral vertebrae .they can still be dinosaur long as they have advance feature that what matter because you must explain advance feature.and because advance feature should not be there .spinosauridae is transition dinosaur turn into modern crocodilian clearly is a dinosaur with fuse ankle poor arm movement and clearly is mesoeucrocodylia with fully secondary bony palate and lack of neural arch big sail hump neural spine back well developed fuse Frontal fuse parietal and sagittal crest and jaw to swallow large prey like a gator and space predator teeth like t.rex Nile crocodile and heterodont predator teeth allso found in the Nile crocodile who still has serrated teeth.there is no animal in fossil record have feature share by spinosauridae and modern crocodilian it’s a match it’s not convergent evolution spinosauridae is number 1 ancestor of modern crocodilian it’s a fact .no dinosaur was advance as spinosauridae he kill them and got more powerful trough the years the modern form modern crocodilian .spinosauridae look more like modern crocodilian than early gator type land mesoeucrocodylia scientist have to use fully secondary bony palate to tell if they are mesoeucrocodylia they look more like mammals.and scientist had known that gator is a dinosaur long time a go because today dwarf crocodile has frill dinosaur skin like a animal like triceratops the mesoeucrocodylia shieldcroc frill skin mean shield .dwarf crocodile was found in 1800 and there is nothing primitive about modern crocodilian it’s a extremely dangerous animal.dinosaur is coruph because it has a cool name.

  10. What are your thoughts on the Leviathan?

  11. Dragon other monster likely are land mesoeucrocodylia because they do not look like semi aquatic modern crocodilian with there nose going forward eyes are not on top of the skull more armor skin walking bipedal most of time small snout and live in cave .ancient people says dragon live in cave and crocodilian are not the nices animal .man live in cave cat prey on man in cave.or surviving swimming pterosaur put the wing on land mesoeucrocodylia because they thought it was the same animal both are dinosaur. mesoeucrocodylia is different type of dinosaur from the flightless pterosaur .fossil eusuchian mesoeucrocodylia allso live on land and the say today crocodilian some are only land crocodilian today crocodilian rarely walk bipedal they do not have the feature like fossil land mesoeucrocodylia and dinosaur they could if they wanted to thou there video on YouTube they doing It likely because they are semi aquatic predator ..man mite have kill early land mesoeucrocodylia but today crocodilian would have replace them any way because of superior feature.

  12. Please people get educated. Really tho!! Open your minds beyond just the tellings of a BOOK. Written by a person(s). Jonny-boy is on point with his integrated thought process. Trust the facts of proven science while staying connected to spirituality. The world and the universe is so vast. Get with the program y’all!!!

  13. I am not into science and this popped up on my news feed…..
    What a great article. Snakes scare the sh*t out of me But I love reading about them.

  14. Lol….. that is freaking hillarious!!! And you’ll have people who will soak that up like a wet sponge….lol

  15. So, this article says the snakes came from asteroids. Then, here on the same site, it says the asteroids killed of the snakes…..lol….gotta love speculation and non-proven theories!!! Asteroid Collision Led to the Mass Extinction of Lizards and Snakes
    https://scitechdaily.com/asteroid-collision-lead-to-the-mass-extinction-of-lizards-and-snakes/

  16. I love this article. I’m a snake enthusiast. I just wish instead of saying “garter snakes” it said coulbrids because that’s the family name. I’m kinda just knit picking

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