A snake with four legs is not a snake

 

Image courtesy of Dave Jones, Creative commons (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Joel Kontinen

 

A fossil once thought to be a snake with four legs, connecting lizards and early snakes, is not the missing link scientists had hoped for.

Published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology, a study led by paleontologist Michael Caldwell of the University of Alberta disputed the findings of a team of researchers that reported their discovery of what they believed was the first known example of a four-legged snake fossil. They dubbed it Tetrapodophis amplectus in their study published in the journal Science in 2015.

According to evolutionists, it has long been understood that snakes are members of a lineage of four-legged vertebrates that, as a result of evolutionary specializations, lost their limbs," said Caldwell. "It has thus long been predicted that a snake with four legs would be found as a fossil."

The researchers in the original study estimated that T. amplectus was about 25 centimetres or 10 inches long.

Caldwell pointed out that all aspects of its anatomy are consistent with dolichosaurs: a group of extinct marine lizards from the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago).

The dates are wrong, also.  

Source:

Barillas, Martin M, 2021,  Four-Legged Snake Fossil a Fake, Scientists Say, Newsweek 21November..