How Snakes Lost Their Legs

How snakes lost their legs

By: Rose Jokiel

https://www.dogonews.com/2015/12/11/the-mystery-of-why-crafty-snakes-shed-their-legs-is-finally-solved

When you look at a snake you see a legless tube-shaped reptile. But believe it or not, about 113 million years ago the snakes had legs. The best fossil found of this prehistoric snake is the “Tetrapodophis Amplectus” or simply known as four-legged hugging snake. This fossil was Found by David Martill in Germany. But scientists were wondering why the snakes don’t have them anymore, why they lost them. But the answer was finally found this year in 2015. One scientist was looking at the ears and noticed that they are similar to most burrowing animals. The scientist started comparing the fossil to the modern day snake and came with the answer to the question. Snakes lost their legs to adapt to burrowing so they can hide from predators and sneak up on their prey. As you can see snakes have had an interesting past.

When I first read this article I was already interested because of two reasons. One was because of my brothers ball python and because I was amazed how the snakes evolved to fit the ecosystem. I chose this article for my project because I was amazed and needed to share the wonder. Also I also really agree with the scientist who made this because of the evidence in the photograph along with the article. At first I wasn’t completely sure because I didn’t understand it but with some help from the picture I not only understood it but Believed It as well. This connects with what we are studying or studied in science in two ways. One way is because The snake species changed to fit its ecosystem. The other way this fits our unit is it shows the snake body. These two reasons are why this project connects with our unit. This has helped us not only figured out the snakes past but also found a little more evidence to what life was like millions of years ago. But I still have a question why did snakes have legs in the first place if they are strong enough to crush their prey without legs? This is why is why I choose the article.