This snake was discovered in a bedroom in southwest China.
The woman who slept in that bedroom didn’t know what it was, so she beat it to death with a shoe.
The remains of the snake were sent to the Life Sciences Department at China’s West Normal University in Nanchang, where a necropsy is being performed.
As we all know, snakes evolved from ancestors with legs, which were very similar to lizards. Lizards and snakes are both squamates and share a close common ancestry.
Vestigial limbs are well-known to python keepers. These huge snakes have “leg-spurs” that are the last remnant of their former limbs.
However, this snake is something different. It has what looks like a lizard’s full leg, and it has claws. This is not a vestigial limb. This is an atavistic feature.
I thought this was fake when I first saw it, and if it is proven to be fake, then I’ll accept it.
But I think it is real.
The closest thing to this anomaly I can think of is the existence of dewclaws on the hind-legs of domestic dogs. Wild dogs don’t have dewclaws on their hind-legs, and if wild wolves are found with them, they are considered wild hybrids. However, dogs did evolve from ancestors that had five toes on each of their feet, and the existence of these dewclaws is actually very similar to the snake with the leg.
Is it similar to the occasional human baby born with a tail? I’ve read that it can actually be pretty dramatic, but I’ve never seen a photo.
Yes. It’s called atavism.
Do you know what species of snake it is? It looks like it’s got something in it that it’s digesting or else her shoe caused a lot of damage to the snake’s internal structure.
I have a no idea.
Hmmm. It perhaps would have been nice if one of the sources had said it is a common species of constrictor or whatever. That way the atavism could go on record and possibly be tracked to see if there were such occurrences previously recorded in the species or it’s close relatives. I hope some herpetologist somewhere has the necessary information recorded. If this isn’t real, it’s the best use of Photoshop ever done, surpassing Iran’s attempt with the same program to fake a successful missile launch, and that wasn’t all that shabby.
Maybe a Wnt, Dlx or homeobox mutation.
For those who don’t know, chickens also have the ability to grow proto-teeth. Evolution rocks.