Around 37.5 million years ago, the ancestors of these snakes migrated from Asia to Africa.
For a long time, scientists believed that the first cobra snakes, along with mambas and coral snakes, originated in Africa. This idea was based on a fossil found in Tanzania, estimated to be between 33.9 and 23 million years old, which was thought to be the oldest relative of these snakes.
However, a new study published on August 7 in the Royal Society Open Science journal has shaken up this belief. Researchers analyzed the DNA of various snake species related to the cobra family, including those from the Asian superfamily Colubroidea, which are distant relatives of the Elapoidea superfamily that includes cobras, mambas, and coral snakes.
Jeffrey Weinell, an evolutionary biologist at the American Museum of Natural History, and his team collected genetic data from 65 species of Elapoidea across 3,128 locations. They also gathered genomes from 434 other snake species to understand the relationships between them. The findings revealed something surprising: the oldest ancestors of the Elapoidea superfamily actually originated in Asia, between 28.9 and 45.9 million years ago.
The Colubroidea superfamily, which is a distant relative, evolved between 31.3 and 48.8 million years ago. Fossils of these early snakes haven’t been found in Asia due to the tropical climate, which made their preservation difficult.
Around 37.5 million years ago, the ancestors of these snakes migrated from Asia to Africa. From Africa, they spread to Europe, Australasia, and the Americas about 24.4 million years ago. Today, there are over 700 species of venomous snakes around the world, except Antarctica.
The study also showed that the evolution of Elapoidea and Colubroidea occurred simultaneously. Both groups traveled from Asia to Africa through different routes and later returned to Asia multiple times, creating new colonies each time. This back-and-forth migration also led to the emergence of sea snakes and coral snakes, which adapted to both land and water environments.
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 "Where was the world's first cobra snake born? You'll be amazed to find out")
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