47 Million-Year-Old Snake Species’ Fossil Found in Gujarat, India
47 Million-Year-Old Snake Species’ Fossil Found in Gujarat, India
In a big discovery, scientists have found the fossilised remains of a mysterious snake species in Gujarat, India, which is believed to be roaming the lands, dating back around 47 million years.
20 April 2024
By Ishika Kumar
In a big discovery, scientists have found the fossilised remains of a mysterious snake species in Gujarat, India, which is believed to be roaming the lands, dating back around 47 million years.
The remains were found by Prof. Sunil Bajpai and Debajit Datta from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee. They have named it Vasuki Indicus. The parallel is based upon the mythical Vasuki, Lord Shiva’s serpent. In Hindu mythology, it symbolises the essence of mythicism, and is representational of Hindu beliefs. It is one of the biggest snakes ever, reaching 11 to 15 metres long. This finding from the Panandhro Lignite Mine in Kutch, Gujarat, has made researchers extremely excited.
By looking at 27 preserved vertebrae, scientists figured out how big Vasuki Indicus was. Through meticulous analysis, scientists have gauged the immense proportions of Vasuki Indicus. Their findings, based on measurements ranging from 37.5 to 62.7 millimetres, firmly establish the comparison to other existing snakes; it is said to be as big as a Titanoboa, another huge snake. It is also thought that Vasuki Indicus moved slowly and stealthily like today’s anacondas, hunting its prey by sneaking on them.
Vasuki Indicus belongs to the Madtsoiidae family of snakes, which lived in many places including Africa, Europe and India. Scientists say it probably came from India during a time called the Eocene Epoch, between 56 to 34 million years ago. After that, it may have spread to Europe and Africa.
This is a big discovery for palaeontologists all around the world studying Earth’s history. Researchers think the warm climate in Gondwanaland averaging around 28°C, where India was situated in ancient times, helped Vasuki Indicus grow so big. As the Madtsoiidae snakes lived for about 100 million years, from the Late Cretaceous to the Late Pleistocene age, between 98 million to 11,000 years ago, the discovery tells us more about how these snakes moved across the world and adds to our understanding of the biodiversity, wildlife, evolutionary trajectory and geographic dispersion of mammoth snake species during the Eocene era of India as well as other lands of the ancient world.
