Comptes Rendus Palevol

Snakes from the Cenozoic of Europe – towards a macroevolutionary and palaeobiogeographic synthesis

Snake remains are abundant in the Cenozoic European fossil record and are known from an array of localities throughout the continent. Snake fossils mainly consist of isolated vertebrae and, to a lesser degree, incomplete cranial remains; however, in a few cases, complete articulated skeletons and even mummified trunk portions of the body have also been discovered. Their fossil record in Europe attests to a high taxonomic diversity during their Cenozoic past, comprising several dozens of named species and pertaining to a plethora of distinct shapes and sizes. The European Cenozoic fossil record of snakes, which dates back to the Paleocene and encompasses a wide geographic distribution, provides valuable insights into major climatic events, dispersals, faunal turnovers, and extinctions that shaped the European Cenozoic faunas, ultimately leading to the emergence of many extant taxa. Despite more than two centuries of paleontological effort on Cenozoic European snakes and recent advances in our knowledge of the cranial and vertebral morphology of extant snakes, significant gaps remain, as many taxa have yet to be adequately described and the phylogenetic relationships of several taxa are still poorly known, thus hindering a full understanding of snake evolution in the European Cenozoic. The articles in this virtual issue aim to fill certain of these gaps in our knowledge, as they include, among others, descriptions of new snake taxa, re-documentation of type specimens described more than a century ago, identifications of novel anatomical features in the skull and vertebrae, studies of articulated skeletons from Fossillagerstätte localities enhanced by the application of micro-computed tomography (μCT) scanning, documentation of new fossil snake occurrences from underexplored regions of Europe, and studies of palaeobiogeography, dispersal and extinction events.