''Colombophis'' ("

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

of Colombia" in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

) is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of snakes of the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

Alethinophidia :''Common names: advanced snakes.'' The Alethinophidia are an infraorder of snakes that includes all snakes other than blind snakes and thread snakes. Snakes have long been grouped into families within Alethinophidia based on their morphology, e ...

, a group of "primitive" snakes. The

was first recognized in the

Villavieja Formation The Honda Group (, Tsh, Ngh) is a geological group of the Upper and Middle Magdalena Basins and the adjacent Central and Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The group, in older literature also defined as formation, is in its present-day ty ...

in the town of Los Mangos, part of the known fossil fauna of

La Venta La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in nearby Villaherm ...

in the

department of Huila Huila () is one of the departments of Colombia. It is located in the southwest of the country, and its capital is Neiva. Demography and Ethnography Huila department had a population of 1,122,622 inhabitants in 2020, of which 679,667 (60.54%) ...

(

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

), in the middle Miocene. With the remains of a

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

snake was erected the species ''Colombophis portai'' in 1977, based on forty fragmentary

vertebrae Each vertebra (: vertebrae) is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, that make up the vertebral column or spine, of vertebrates. The proportions of the vertebrae differ according to their spinal ...

. These vertebrae are characterized by a low neural spine, and subdivided paradiapophysis and thin zygosphene. The vertebrae are medium to large, so the snake would measure about long, similar in size to the current

Boa constrictor The boa constrictor (scientific name also ''Boa constrictor''), also known as the common boa, is a species of large, non-venomous, heavy-bodied snake that is frequently kept and bred in captivity. The boa constrictor is a member of the Family (b ...

.Hecht, M.K. and LaDuke, T.C. 1997. Limbless tetrapods. In: R.F. Kay, R.H. Madden, R.L. Cifelli, and J.J. Flynn (eds.), Vertebrate Paleontology in the Neotropics: The Miocene Fauna of La Venta, Colombia, 95–99. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington.

Taxonomy

Remains found in the Brazilian

Solimões Formation The Pebas Formation is a lithostratigraphic unit of Miocene age, found in western Amazonia. The formation extends over , including parts of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.Wesselingh et al., 2006 It is interpreted as representing the deposit ...

in the

Purus River The Purus River (Portuguese: ''Rio Purus''; Spanish: ''Río Purús'') is a tributary of the Amazon River in South America. Its drainage basin is , and the mean annual discharge is . The river shares its name with the Alto Purús National Park a ...

area (

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

), with vertebrae shorter than wide, thick zygosphene and high neural thorn, were classified as a new species, ''Colombophis spinosus'';Hsiou, A.S., Albino, A.M., and Ferigolo, J. 2010. Reappraisal of the South American Miocene snakes of the genus Colombophis, with description of a new species. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 55 (3): 365–379
/ref> fossil remains found in

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

(

Urumaco Urumaco is a town in Falcón State in Venezuela. It is of interest to paleontologists due to its rich fossil history. The arid climate of the region means that the fossils are not hidden by vegetation. The fossils were first made known to scienc ...

area) and Colombia (La Venta) also seem to belong to this new species rather than ''C. portai''. Traditionally, ''Colombophis'' was taken as a representative of the family primitive

Aniliidae The Aniliidae are a monotypic family created for the monotypic genus ''Anilius'' that contains the single species ''Anilius scytale''. Common names include the American pipe snake and false coral snake. It is found in South America. This snake po ...

fossorial A fossorial animal () is one that is adapted to digging and which lives primarily (but not solely) underground. Examples of fossorial vertebrates are Mole (animal), moles, badgers, naked mole-rats, meerkats, armadillos, wombats, and mole salamand ...

and primitive snakes that still retained some traces of lizard as '' Anilius'', the false coral. However, retention of primitive traits that identify ''Colombophis'' and other members of the

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

Anilioidea (including features already found in the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

snake ''

Dinilysia ''Dinilysia'' (meaning "terrible ilysia") is an extinct genus of snake from the Late Cretaceous (Coniacian) of South America. ''Dinilysia'' was a relatively large ambush predator, measuring approximately long. The skull morphology of ''Dinilysia ...

patagonica'') indicate that this group is

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

and that for now, ''Colombophis'' remains as an Alethinophidia of uncertain classification. Moreover, their remains indicate that the ecosystems of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

from the mid-Miocene were humid tropical environments as reinforces the finding of other reptile faunas of Urumaco, La Venta and Solimões as '' Paradracaena'' and '' Eunectes stirtoni''; ''Colombophis'', like ''Dinilysia'', must be adapted to move and feed in semi-aquatic environments. Fossils were also found in the Socorro Formation of Venezuela.

References

External links

Colombophis in Wikispecies

Paleobiology Database: Colombophis
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5148053 Alethinophidia Miocene lepidosaurs Miocene reptiles of South America Neogene Brazil Fossils of Brazil Neogene Colombia Fossils of Colombia Honda Group, Colombia Neogene Venezuela Fossils of Venezuela Fossil taxa described in 1977