Snakes seem like relatively simple creatures—basically a glorified sock with holes on either end. Yet, these creatures have managed to adapt to nearly every continent on the planet over the past 100 million years.
But how exactly did snakes evolve, and what made these slithery creatures so successful across the planet today? It was likely a combination of three factors that all arose at roughly the same time.
“It all happens in one singular evolutionary burst around 100 to 110 million years ago, and then after that they pretty much have free reign to the planet every time they go into a new habitat,” says Alex Pyron, a biologist at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Did Snakes Evolve From Lizards?
In some sense, snakes are really just a subset of lizards. Lizards began to evolve roughly 220 million years ago during the Triassic. In fact, snakes are just one of more than 30 groups of lizards that each evolved away their legs separately over the eons. Many of those lineages still survive today, including the European glass lizard, the giant legless skink, and the striped legless lizard.
