O noes! But it seems true, and you can read about this new finding, published in PLoS Biology, over at Matthew Cobb’s Z-letter.
Fig. 1. A newly-described Cretaceous snake, Sanajeh indicus, about to gobble a hatchling sauropod dinosaur. Reconstruction from a “news and views” piece by Michael Benton.
h/t: Matthew Cobb
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Wilson, J. A., D. M. Mohabey, S. E. Peters, and J. J. Head., 2010. Predation upon hatchling dinosaurs by a new snake from the late Cretaceous of India. PLoS Biol 8(3): e1000322. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000322
Don’t eat the cute baby dino!!!
Where would modern day snakes get their objective sense of morality from if there were no deity?
This was an atheist snake, obviously.
“Why did I have to be the one that hatched first!”
Snakes are mean.
hahaha i like the pic XD
I saw this in the news, but how do they know that snake was eating the Dino eggs or hatchlings? Maybe the hatchlings were eating the snake?
It says they were sauropod dinosaurs, and if I’m not mistaken aren’t they herbivores
Bob, I’m pretty sure the bigger of the animals ate the other one in this instance. This is cool to me because I didn’t realize that snakes had evolved that early.
Win!
One of the more detailed articles I read this morning about this fossil indicated that the snake’s head and jaws were nearly lizard-like, with only traces of the more specialized adaptations for swallowing possessed by all modern snakes. But, our creationist friends will assure us, we would be fools to call this snake a transitional form for that reason. Rather it glaringly points out the lack of transitional forms between more primitive snakes with entirely lizard-like mouths and this animal, and between this animal and modern snakes. So evolution fails again, I fear.
Ha.. ha.. You got me!
What an incredible fossil find! It looks as though the snake has swallowed one of the eggs, does it not? Also a good possibility that the snake waited til mommy dinosaur left, then went in for her repast.
Well our creationist friends will assure us, we would be fools to call this snake a transitional form for that reason.