Snake fossils are extremely rare, and this one was petrified just as it was about to eat a dinosaur hatchling
Discovered: Gujarat, India, 1986
Age: 68 million years
Location: Geological Survey of India
Unlike some dinosaurs, the giant, long-necked sauropods did not care for their eggs. Adults have never been found near nests, so it seems that sauropod hatchlings had to fend for themselves from the start. And that left the way clear for predators to feast on them as they emerged.
One of these predators was a 3.5-metre-long snake called Sanajeh indicus. Towards the end of the age of the dinosaurs, one decided to raid a nest of a sauropod eggs, perhaps attracted by the noise of hatchlings breaking out of their shells.
Sanajeh could not open its mouth wide like modern egg-eaters and other snakes, says Jeffrey Wilson ...
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