Another wanderer from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum? A new species of the North American snake genus Cheilophis Gilmore, 1938 from the early Eocene of France

We here document new snake vertebral material from the early Eocene (MP 10) of Cuis, France, that we describe as a new species of Cheilophis Gilmore, 1938, a genus that was so far exclusively known from the Paleocene and Eocene of North America. The new taxon bears several anatomical features with the type, and so far, only known species of Cheilophis from North America. However, there are also important differences that allow us to recognize it as a new congeneric species. If our identification is correct, this first observed occurrence of Cheilophis from France adds another shared terrestrial vertebrate genus between Europe and North America, reinforcing biogeographic hypotheses about dispersals between the two landmasses around the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).