Ancient snake wore green
Researchers suspect that a roughly 10-million-year-old snake once had a pattern of bright green and black pigments on its back, with yellow and pale brown coloration on its sides, fading into a creamy underbelly.
Jim RobbinsAn ancient snakeskin preserves signs of the bright green coloration of its wearer, researchers report online March 31 in Current Biology.
The fossilized skin of an 11.2-million- to 8.7-million-year-old snake from Spain contains remnants of pigment cells. By comparing the cells’ shapes and architectures with those of modern snakes, the researchers identified cellular structures linked to green, yellow, brown, black and creamy hues.
Previous reconstructions of ancient colors have been limited to the reds, browns and blacks of melanin pigment, but this is an unusual case. Calcium phosphate in the rock allowed for exceptional preservation of the snake’s skin layers, opening the door to reconstructing green and yellow colors in the fossil record.
