TY - JOUR
T1 - Additional vertebral material of Thaumastophis (Serpentes: Caenophidia) from the early Eocene of India provides new insights on the early diversification of colubroidean snakes
AU - Zaher, Hussam
AU - Folie, Annelise
AU - Quadros, Ana B.
AU - Rana, Rajendra S.
AU - Kumar, Kishor
AU - Rose, Kenneth D.
AU - Fahmy, Mohamed
AU - Smith, Thierry
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank our colleagues and students who have participated in the field work in the lignite mines of Gujarat since 2004: H.E. Ahrens, C. Cousin, R.H. Dunn, S. Gajwan, F.D.H. Gould, R.D.E. MacPhee, P. Missiaen, C. Noiret, R. Patel, A. Sahni, A.P. Singh, H. Singh, L. Singh, F. Solé, T. Steeman, N. Vallée Gillette, G.M. Voegele, and M. Waqas. Excavation was facilitated by the personnel of the Gujarat Industrial Power Corporation Ltd. and the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation. At the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Julien Cillis produced the SEM photographs, and Nathan Vallée Gillette prepared the specimens. We are grateful to Bruno Navarro from the Universidade de São Paulo for the confection of Fig. 4 , and A.H. Sileem for providing access to the material of Renenutet deposited at the Egyptian Geological Museum, Cairo. Fieldwork and research were supported by The Leakey Foundation (grants to K.D.R. and T.S.); National Geographic Society (grants 6868-00 , 7938-05 , 8356-07 , 8710-09 and 8958-11 to K.D.R.); Department of Science and Technology, Government of India ( ESS/23/Ves092/2000 and SR/S4/ES-254/2007 to R.S.R.); the Director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India (to K.K.); Federal Science Policy Office of Belgium (BELSPO BR/121/A3/PalEurAfrica and BL/36/fwi05 to T.S.); Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico (Ph.D. scholarship 153189/2016-9 to A.B.Q.); Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior ( 88881.189306/2018-01 ); Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (grant 2018/11902-9 to H.Z.). Finally, we are grateful to the reviewers Salvador Bailon, Krister Smith, and Georgios Georgalis whose thoughtful comments led to improvements in the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - The Ypresian Cambay Shale Formation at Vastan, Mangrol, and Tadkeshwar lignite mines in Gujarat, western India, has yielded a rich vertebrate fauna including madtsoiid, palaeophiid, booid, and colubroidean-like snakes. The latter are particularly abundant, but their systematic affinities are difficult to resolve. Here we describe new specimens of the colubroidean-like snake Thaumastophis missiaeni, including anterior, middle, and posterior trunk vertebrae, as well as caudal vertebrae. The combination of primitive and derived caenophidian and colubroidean vertebral characters confirms Thaumastophis as the earliest known stem-colubriform snake while Procerophis, from the same beds, is more derived and considered to represent a crown-Colubriformes. Additionally, Thaumastophis shares with Renenutet enmerwer from the late Eocene of Egypt a unique combination of vertebral characters that suggests an exchange with North Africa was possible along the southern margin of the Neotethys. We erect the new family Thaumastophiidae for Thaumastophis and Renenutet on the basis of their shared derived vertebral morphology.
AB - The Ypresian Cambay Shale Formation at Vastan, Mangrol, and Tadkeshwar lignite mines in Gujarat, western India, has yielded a rich vertebrate fauna including madtsoiid, palaeophiid, booid, and colubroidean-like snakes. The latter are particularly abundant, but their systematic affinities are difficult to resolve. Here we describe new specimens of the colubroidean-like snake Thaumastophis missiaeni, including anterior, middle, and posterior trunk vertebrae, as well as caudal vertebrae. The combination of primitive and derived caenophidian and colubroidean vertebral characters confirms Thaumastophis as the earliest known stem-colubriform snake while Procerophis, from the same beds, is more derived and considered to represent a crown-Colubriformes. Additionally, Thaumastophis shares with Renenutet enmerwer from the late Eocene of Egypt a unique combination of vertebral characters that suggests an exchange with North Africa was possible along the southern margin of the Neotethys. We erect the new family Thaumastophiidae for Thaumastophis and Renenutet on the basis of their shared derived vertebral morphology.
KW - Cambay Shale Formation
KW - Colubroides
KW - Snakes
KW - Ypresian
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U2 - 10.1016/j.geobios.2020.06.009
DO - 10.1016/j.geobios.2020.06.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092026659
SN - 0016-6995
VL - 66-67
SP - 35
EP - 43
JO - Geobios
JF - Geobios
ER -