🚨EVOLUZIONE: il serpente A DIVERSA DA TUTTI sopravvive all'ESTINZIONE

In the mid‑Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago, a world dominated by giant dinosaurs also hosted small lizards that hunted insects and worms in the tangled roots of giant ferns. Living in a cramped, underground forest, these lizards faced constant danger and limited space, making a long, slender body advantageous. Natural selection gradually favored individuals with longer bodies and smaller limbs, turning the once‑limbed reptiles into limbless serpents. Fossil evidence, such as the transitional species Najash rionegrina from Patagonia, shows a creature with a serpent‑like body, a wide gape, yet still retaining a pelvic girdle and two small hind limbs—likely used for anchoring or mating. Another early snake, Pachyophis, from 98 million‑year‑old marine limestone, suggests that some limb loss may have begun underwater, with hind limbs acting as rudders or stabilizers. Over 160 million years, snakes evolved into the efficient, toxin‑armed predators we see today, inhabiting almost every part of the globe except Antarctica.