A section of the fossil vertebra of Pterosphenus schucherti. Credit: Renzo D'souza
Paleontologists have unearthed fossils of a prehistoric giant marine snake, Pterosphenus schucherti, from India's Kachchh Basin1. Comparisons with Pterosphenus remains from India, Africa and North America show all these fossils belonged to the same species.
As a result, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Mumbai have updated the genus classification by grouping two of the six previously recognized Pterosphenus species, which lived 47 to 33 million years ago, under Pterosphenus schucherti.
Belonging to the Palaeophiidae family of aquatic snakes, which became extinct at the end of the Eocene, the newly discovered fossil consisted of a vertebral column of 17 vertebrae partially buried in a hard carbonate rock. The researchers spent four months removing the carbonate matrix working with electrical engravers and dental picks.
It was then scanned using neutron tomography at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai to create 3D models of each bone, allowing the team to study the snake's taxonomy and accurately estimate its size. At 6.7 metres, it was longer than the reticulated python, which at an average length of 6 metres is one of the largest snakes alive today.
Based on a model using the modern yellow-bellied sea snake (Hydrophis platurus), which has a wide distribution across the Pacific Ocean from Africa's east coast to North America's west coast, the researchers say Pterosphenus schucherti likely had a global range, including the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea.
