A new look at a 95-million-year-old fossilized snake reveals two tiny leg bones attached to the slithery creature's pelvis. A three-dimensional reconstruction of the bones could help researchers understand how snakes evolved to lose their legs.
The fossil, found in Lebanon, is from an era when snakes had not yet completely lost the hind limbs left by their lizard ancestors. A much-debated question among paleontologists is whether these leggy ancestors were ocean-living swimmers or land-dwelling burrowing lizards.
The new finding takes a stab at answering that question.
