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Science 17 March 2000:
Vol. 287. no. 5460, pp. 1939 - 1941
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5460.1939
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Perspectives

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
Limbless Tetrapods and Snakes with Legs

Harry W. Greene and David Cundall

A debate is raging among evolutionary biologists about the origins of snakes: did the ancestors of our modern day slippery serpents slither out of the sea or were they always land dwellers. Greene and Cundall explain the evidence for and against a marine origin for snakes. In particular, the finding of a new, almost complete, Cretaceous snake fossil with well-developed hindlimbs in the Middle East (Tchernov et al.) suggests that the ancestors of snakes may have been landlubbers after all.

H. W. Greene is in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850-2701, USA. E-mail: hwg5{at}cornell.edu D. Cundall is in the Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015-3190, USA. E-mail: dlc0{at}lehigh.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
THE ANATOMY AND RELATIONSHIPS OF HAASIOPHIS TERRASANCTUS, A FOSSIL SNAKE WITH WELL-DEVELOPED HIND LIMBS FROM THE MID-CRETACEOUS OF THE MIDDLE EAST.
(2003)
Journal of Paleontology 77, 536-558
Snake origins and the need for scientific agreement on vernacular names.
(2001)
Paleobiology 27, 1-6


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