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Snakes were regularly regarded as guardians of the Underworld or messengers between the Upper and Lower worlds, because they lived in cracks and holes in the ground. The Gorgons of Greek myth were snake-women (a common hybrid) whose gaze would turn flesh into stone, the most famous of them being Medusa. [18]
The skull of a snake differs from a lizards in several ways. Snakes have more flexible jaws, that is, instead of a juncture at the upper and lower jaw, the snake's jaws are connected by a bone hinge that is called the quadrate bone. Between the two halves of the lower jaw at the chin there is an elastic ligament that allows for a separation.
Najash is an extinct genus of basal snake from the Late Cretaceous Candeleros Formation of Patagonia. [1] Like a number of other Cretaceous and living snakes it retained hindlimbs, but Najash is unusual in having well-developed legs that extend outside the rib cage, and a pelvis connected to the spine.
A = Anapsid, B = Synapsid, C = Diapsid. It was traditionally assumed that first reptiles were anapsids, having a solid skull with holes only for the nose, eyes, spinal cord, etc.; [10] the discoveries of synapsid-like openings in the skull roof of the skulls of several members of Parareptilia, including lanthanosuchoids, millerettids, bolosaurids, some nycteroleterids, some procolophonoids and ...
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 ]
Why did it have to be snakes?” The reptile, christened Tachymenoides harrisonfordi, measures 16 inches long and is a pale yellowish-brown colour with black spots and a black belly.
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Pachyrhachis was originally described by Haas (1979, 1980) who noted it had a puzzling melange of snake and lizard features; its status as an early snake was later confirmed (Caldwell and Lee 1997). The position of Pachyrhachis within snakes has been debated (e.g. Lee and Scanlon 2002; Rieppel et al. 2003).