Ancient Snake-Lizard Hybrid creature Discovered in Scotland

Scientists person discovered a 167-million-year-old reptile connected Scotland’s Isle of Skye that appears to beryllium a lizard and snake hybrid. Credit: Neil Howard – CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr.

Scientists person discovered a 167-million-year-old reptile connected Scotland’s Isle of Skye that appears to beryllium a lizard and snake hybrid. Researchers accidental the find sheds caller airy connected aboriginal squamate improvement and offers caller clues astir however snakes whitethorn person originated.

The recently described species, Breugnathair elgolensis, has been nicknamed the “false snake of Elgol”, aft the adjacent colony wherever it was found. The specimen measured astir 0.41 meters (16 inches) agelong and had a short-bodied, afloat limbed signifier with a snake-like jaw and curved, hooked teeth, akin to those recovered successful modern-day pythons.

The specimen’s operation of features, specified arsenic gecko-like characteristics successful parts of the skull and powerfully hooked, snake-style teeth, places it successful an obscure squamate subgroup called Parviraptoridae, antecedently lone known from fragmentary remains. The fossil was primitively uncovered successful 2015 by Stig Walsh of the National Museums Scotland, and was prepared and analyzed for implicit a decade, utilizing high-powered X-rays and elaborate CT scans.

Snake-lizard important for knowing of the improvement of surviving groups

“The Jurassic fossil deposits connected the Isle of Skye are of satellite value for our knowing of the aboriginal improvement of galore surviving groups, including lizards, which were opening their diversification astatine astir this time,” said co-lead writer Susan Evans.

Evans, a professor of vertebrate morphology and paleontology astatine University College London, added, “The mosaic of primitive and specialized features we find successful parviraptorids, arsenic demonstrated by this caller specimen, is an important reminder that evolutionary paths tin beryllium unpredictable.”

A groundbreaking find successful Scotland reveals Breugnathair elgolensis, a 167-million-year-old lizard with some snake and gecko traits, challenging our knowing of reptilian improvement and raising questions astir the origins of snakes. pic.twitter.com/0fFc4s4AVJ

— unumihai Media (@unumihaimedia) October 1, 2025

Researchers said Breugnathair probably preyed connected lizards, aboriginal mammals, and young dinosaurs, including tiny herbivorous heterodontosaurids and bird-like paravians. This would marque it 1 of the largest lizard predators successful its Jurassic ecosystem, contempt its size.

The fossil does not ‘get america each the way’ successful resolving the origins of snakes

Study co-author Roger Benson of the American Museum of Natural History said the fossil “gets america rather far, but it doesn’t get america each of the way” successful resolving the origins of snakes. The find has raised 2 possibilities,  either the snakes evolved from animals that resembled the Breugnathair or that snakes and the Breugnathair independently evolved akin jaw and bony structures.

In a statement, Benson said, “However, it makes america adjacent much excited astir the anticipation of figuring retired wherever snakes travel from.” Lizards and snakes beryllium to Squamata, a radical that researchers accidental emerged astir 190 cardinal years ago. According to the probe team, fossils recovered successful the Isle of Skye are helping capable gaps successful the grounds from the Jurassic period, erstwhile galore current-day reptile groups began to diversify.

Credit: Benson, R.B.J., Walsh, S.A., Griffiths, E.F. et al – CC BY 4.0 via Nature

Stig Walsh, who led the archetypal tract betterment of the fossil, said it is important due to the fact that parviraptorids had been known chiefly from isolated bones. Researchers utilized elaborate imaging to survey the specimen’s anatomy and placed it successful a broader evolutionary context.