Legless for 100+ million years: snaking through evolution across land and sea
New fossil finds and genomic studies illuminate how snakes rose to dominance over 100 million years: likely starting on land, they gradually shed their legs (roughly 150–125 million years ago) and evolved a highly flexible skull and jaws, enabling diverse diets and habitats from burrowing to aquatic life; fossils like Najash and Dinilysia hint at mixed terrestrial underground origins, while ongoing genome work aims to clarify their closest relatives and the genes behind limb loss.