I was wondering where the legs of the snake ‘should’ be. The answer turns out to be pretty much anywhere because there are so many animals that evolved snake-like bodies independently. Some have long tails, some have short tails, some have forelimbs, some have hindlimbs, etcetera. This is also why the origins of how the snake lost its limbs remains surprisingly scientifically uncertain, with hot debates such as whether its origin descends from a terrestrial burrower or an aquatic swimmer. Yet snakes are successful in so many environments, perhaps an other adaptation explains the loss of limbs. The classifications of species within the ‘snake-like’ clade Ophidia, and their relationships to each other, remains somewhat arbitrary and disputed. Comparing to lizards, the snake relates most closely to the gecko.
Nevertheless, there is a fossil of a now extinct ‘four-leg-snake’ Tetra-pod-ophis, discovered recently in Brasil. It is approximately 30 centimeters. (Yet fossils of other species of snake can reach 15 meters, such as Titanoboa, discovered in Colombia.)
Taxonomy assigns the four leg snake to: the class Reptilia (‘reptiles’), order Squamata (‘scalies’, including lizards, snakes, and similar), an inserted clade Ophidia (‘snake-likes’), then the genus Tetrapodophis (‘four leg snake’).
At the very least, this is one example of a reallife snake that shows locations for where the limbs would go.
Tetrapodophis (reconstruction from fossil, assuming terrestrial habitat, and guessing its coloring)
Tetrapodophis (reconstruction from fossil, assuming aquatic habitat, and guessing its coloring)
Other reconstructions
