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Pelvic spurs (also known as vestigial legs) are external protrusions found around the cloaca in certain superfamilies of snakes belonging to the greater infraorder Alethinophidia. [1] These spurs are made up of the remnants of the femur bone, which is then covered by a corneal spur, or claw-like structure. [ 1 ]
The skull of Python reticulatus.. The skull of a snake is a very complex structure, with numerous joints to allow the snake to swallow prey far larger than its head.. The typical snake skull has a solidly ossified braincase, with the separate frontal bones and the united parietal bones extending downward to the basisphenoid, which is large and extends forward into a rostrum extending to the ...
Eupodophis is an extinct genus of snake from the Late Cretaceous period. It has two small hind legs and is considered a transitional form between Cretaceous lizards and limbless snakes. The feature, described as vestigial, was most likely useless to Eupodophis. [1]
A spur is much like a true horn; it is a bony core attached to the skeleton and has an outer horny layer. Like horns, the spur grows from the base outwards, so the tip is older than the base. Some spurs form as an outgrowth of an existing bone, though most are secondarily formed as dermal bone hinged to the skeleton through a semi-rigid joint.
Vasuki is an extinct genus of madtsoiid snake from the Middle Eocene Naredi Formation of India. The genus contains a single species , V. indicus , known from several vertebrae . Vasuki has an estimated body length between 10.9–15.2 m (36–50 ft), making it the largest known madtsoiid.
Based on cladistic analysis of skull features, Haasiophis and its sister genera are indicated as either a sister group to, or basal members of, the macrostomatan clade of snakes. This is supported by the general characteristics of the skeleton. The presence of the hind limbs presents a problem with this placement however.
Two-toed amphiumas are the most prominent in the Amphiumidae family and the longest salamander species in the United States, [4] that can grow from 39 to 1,042 g (1.4 to 36.8 oz) in mass and from 34.8 to 116 cm (13.7 to 45.7 in) in length.
The type species, Tetrapodophis amplectus, was named in 2015 on the basis of a complete skeleton (BMMS BK 2-2) preserved on a limestone slab in the Bürgermeister Müller Museum in Solnhofen, Germany, which was labeled as "unknown fossil" until its importance was recognized by paleontologist David Martill [10] when he visited Germany in 2012, [11] and housed in a private collection in a ...