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Sanajeh, the snake the ate baby dinosaurs

Discover the predator status of Sanajeh indicus, the ancient snake caught in a prehistoric tableau with a hatchling sauropod.

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Snakes have been around for nearly 100 million years and scientists have found many fossils of extinct species. But this astonishing specimen is different. This serpent is Sanajeh indicus. It issitting in a dinosaur nest and its coils surround three eggs and the body of a hatchling.

There are many reasons to think that this prehistoric tableau represented a predator caught in the act of hunting, rather than a mash-up of unconnected players thrown together by chance. The snake is perfectly posed, with its head resting atop a coil and its body encircling a crushed egg. All the pieces are very well preserved and very little of the snake, the dinosaur or the crushed egg have been deformed. All of this suggests that the animals were caught unawares and quickly buried in sediment.

The hatchling in question is a baby sauropod part of the dinosaur lineage that included the largest ...

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