A fossilized teeth unravels the mystery of snake fang
Fossilized snake teeth unearthed in a recent excavation gives the scientists a deeper insight into the evolution of snake fangs through the years.
According to the scientists the teeth belongs to Uatchitodon, a distant relative of snake lived 200 million years ago in the late Triassic period. This reptile has a hollow fang and syringe-like teeth, unlike the snakes we see today which has a tube like fang and they inject venom directly into the victims.
With the help of this fossiled proof scientists are trying to trace back the evolution of the fangs in snakes. A study of the teeth has revealed that the hollow fangs might have come from the grooved teeth, which their predecessor had, and the snakes might have injected venom in to the victims flesh at the time of their bite. “This fossil really suggests that you can't get hollow fangs any other way," says herpetologist Wolfgang Wüster at Bangor University, UK.
The Uatchitodon fossils are digged out from three major excavation sites in the US, Placerias Quarry in Arizona, Tomahawk in Virginia, and Moncure in North Carolina. These three sites offer fossils of two different species of Uatchitodon.
The oldest fossils from Tomahawk had longer groove and the length of this groove decreased as we came forward in time. Researchers believe that the first set of Uatchitodons used to bite the poison into the pray and the newer one injected it through its hollow teeth. The fangs in the fossils found from the other two excavation sites look more like a tube or a canal.
But, till now there are no clear evidence to support various theories on the evolution of snake’s fang. Scientists need a solid, fossilized evidence to prove their theories and they hope the Uatchitodon fossil can shed some light on this subject.
According to the scientist this study is not complete unless they find the jaw pattern of the Uatchitodon. With the help of the jaw scientists could explain the evolution theory better.