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Snake Vertebrae from the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia


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The assistant curator of paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History is researching squamates, which includes snakes, from the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia.  A couple of friends and I have given him recently a large number of snake vertebrae, mostly from the sea snakes Palaeophis casei and  Palaeophis toliapicus, from the Nanjemoy Formation of Virginia, to support his research.  We will donate the specimens needed for his research.

 

He is definitely interested in my large Palaeophis sp. vertebra in the below pictures:

 

 

400521386_SnakeVertebraFisherSullivanSiteEoceneStaffordCountyVirginia6.thumb.jpg.2562cef85c87746f19b3ae835404729a.jpg

 

1911593529_SnakeVertebraFisherSullivanSiteEoceneStaffordCountyVirginia1.jpg.8393f395f4fc5d34f2293088328ecc85.jpg

 

1588917360_SnakeVertebraFisherSullivanSiteEoceneStaffordCountyVirginia2.jpg.b08ad76ebb125b4c1c4cc8a7ac7d67e5.jpg

 

 

I also gave him the snake vertebrae in the below pictures.  When I first started finding the sea snake vertebrae in the Nanjemoy Formation, I put them in gem jars in gem jar displays.  However, I found so many, that I also then began to put them in just baggies.

 

 

1830193548_SnakeVertebrae1.thumb.jpg.bf0f20ebec771b8cbdee46e6ee9b3d32.jpg

 

105275481_SnakeVertebrae2.thumb.jpg.0722386b1649f9cc67c2335d309c6347.jpg

 

980198430_SnakeVertebrae3.thumb.jpg.e9bf3e359ceb03355f782baf70206a0b.jpg

 

491443874_SnakeVertebrae4.thumb.jpg.a867d1146e29d50b82695141b7f78941.jpg

 

62285818_SnakeVertebrae5.thumb.jpg.e58d2f33cc60c15b16e1e68e3acc8d6b.jpg

 

996649035_SnakeVertebrae6.thumb.jpg.0ba89f55397b68338a2292a076170c5a.jpg

 

 

I also gave some odd ball specimens, which I believe were lizard vertebrae and a snake tooth.

 

Marco Sr.

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"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

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Thanks for furthering his studies, Marco!  :)    :i_am_so_happy:

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    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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marco... PM me the researcher's name, please.  I have some from the Bridger Fm that might interest him.

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2 hours ago, jpc said:

marco... PM me the researcher's name, please.  I have some from the Bridger Fm that might interest him.

 

Jean-Pierre

 

When I tried to PM you, I received the below error message.  So I e-mailed you with the information.

 

 

image.png.5b655e43e4551482f5b60b2425713839.png

 

 

Marco Sr.

 

"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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  • 3 weeks later...

As a quick update to this thread, I just received the below information in an e-mail from Dr. Adam Pritchard:

 

 

"I have taken a look at only a few of your specimens. The giant is absolutely incredible, comparable to some of the largest palaeophiids I have ever seen. Most of the really, really giant ones come from northern Africa, and I would say this matches them in most dimensions. Some of the other specimens are impressive, too!
 
It will take me a while to assess which specimens we hold onto and which ones I will return to you. ............... No matter what, I will keep you posted."

 

 

Marco Sr.

 

 

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"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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  • 6 months later...

As an update to this thread, Adam, the lead researcher, published a newsletter updating the progress of the study of the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation squamates from Virginia.  Two sections of the newsletter related to snakes are below.

 

This first newsletter excerpt deals with the snake vertebrae that I collected and donated which are discussed and shown in this thread.

 

 

PALAEOPHIID SNAKES -


• Marco provided several hundred .............. palaeophiid vertebrae ranging in size from 2
millimeters to over 2 centimeters in length. This is, as far as I know, the largest sample of North
American palaeophiid snakes in any museum collection in the world. It provides the first real
chance to look at variation in the palaeophiid skeleton.


• In paleontology, snake vertebrae are really beautiful and really annoying. In a single animal
those from the front of the column, the middle of the column, and the tail region can vary
CONSIDERABLY in relative size, relative length, neural spine height, centrum shape...you see
where I'm going here? To really understand variation in a sample—and the potential species
diversity--you need a large sample size to properly divine the differences.


• I think it is quite possible that the larger Palaeophis virginianus and Palaeophis casei from
Virginia may end up being one species. I know it's a big claim, but we are working to build a
statistical case to test the hypothesis. Another intern is working on taking detailed
measurements on hundreds of the vertebrae to try and identify statistical clustering. She's using
the new microscope camera setup to get measures on the teeniest verts.

• If we can see two very separate clusters with large and small vertebrae, that will support the two
species hypothesis. However, if we see a single cluster grading between the small, medium, and
large-sized specimens, that would support shape changes related to body size and growth
instead.

 

 

The second excerpt deals with a snake vertebra collected and donated by my friend Mike.

 

 

TERRESTRIAL SNAKE -


• Mike donated a non-palaeophiid snake vertebra to the collections last year that is of great
interest. Based on my initial discussions with Krister and Giorgios, the specimen does not
closely resemble any specimens they are aware of from western America or Europe. A new
paper on the most common North American Eocene snake, Boavus, also does not show any
species that resemble the ............ vertebra. I'm always cautious about naming a new taxon
based on a single bone, but the specimen's uniqueness may well warrant a name.

 

 

Marco Sr.

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"Any day that you can fossil hunt is a great day."

My family fossil website     Some Of My Shark, Ray, Fish And Other Micros     My Extant Shark Jaw Collection

image.png.9a941d70fb26446297dbc9dae7bae7ed.png image.png.41c8380882dac648c6131b5bc1377249.png

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That's all super exciting! Especially this possible new species! There's a lot of interesting snake evolution going on in the early Cenozoic, so this new species might end up being quite important.

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Very nice update!

 

Gives a peek into the mathematics behind paleontology (and the gruntwork of having to make many individual measurements on hundreds or thousands of specimens). :o

 

We are presently doing similar cluster analysis on the ubiquitous Trachemys slider turtle from the Montbrook site. We assume it represents Trachemys inflata but now that we have an embarrassment of riches of material from this taxon we are able to throw a lot of grad/undergrad time as well as stats programs at the problem and see if our taxon shows any statistical clusters that might indicate it is a novel taxon. In this case it is really interesting to see how the (science) sausage is made and what goes into supporting hypotheses.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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On a personal note, it's been a few years now since I last saw Adam and I'm glad to hear he's got interesting things in the works. I've always quite liked him.

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1 minute ago, jdp said:

That's all super exciting! Especially this possible new species! There's a lot of interesting snake evolution going on in the early Cenozoic, so this new species might end up being quite important.

If only snakes had more postcranial elements beyond verts--they are backbone all the way to the back. :P The ribs are often quite delicate and are not preserved. As mentioned above there are often variations and intergrades between the cervical, thoracic and caudal (post-cloacal) verts within a species. Individual snake verts (the well preserved ones, anyway) are often beautiful little jewels of anatomy with so many tiny features and overlapping facets--each a wealth of information to be measured. :)

 

Snake skulls (despite the frequent pseudo-fossils posted here) are usually so delicate that the component bones are often fragmentary if preserved at all. It is a similar problem to fossil shark taxonomy where only the teeth (or in rarer cases vert centrums) are preserved. So difficult to do taxonomy on a single type of body element. :oO:

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Yeah good fossil snakes are a rarity. You do get them from time to time but it's certainly not commonplace and there are preservational biases in favor of marine snakes.

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