The earliest colubroid-dominated snake fauna from Africa: perspectives from the Late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation of southwestern Tanzania.

ABSTRACT: The extant snake fauna has its roots in faunal upheaval occurring across the Paleogene-Neogene transition. On northern continents, this turnover is well established by the late early Miocene. However, this transition is poorly documented on southern landmasses, particularly on continental Africa, where no late Paleogene terrestrial snake assemblages are documented south of the equator. Here we describe a newly discovered snake fauna from the Late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation in the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania. The fauna is small but diverse with eight identifiable morphotypes, comprised of three booids and five colubroids. This fauna includes Rukwanyoka holmani gen. et sp. nov., the oldest boid known from mainland Africa. It also provides the oldest fossil evidence for the African colubroi

SUBMITTER: McCartney JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3960104 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature