Unlucky Snake, Lucky Paleontologist

[Recusant]

A fossilized section of a food chain:

"Amazing 'Nesting Doll' Fossil Reveals Bug in Lizard in Snake" | National Geographic

The fossil contains a juvenile specimen of the snake Palaeopython fischeri and its prey. The arrow points to the tip of the snout of the lizard inside the snake. Image Credit: Krister T. Smith

Forty-eight million years ago, an iguana relative living in what's now Germany scarfed down an insect with a shimmering exoskeleton. Soon thereafter the lizard's luck changed—when a juvenile snake gulped it down headfirst.

We know this happened because the snake had the spectacularly bad luck to end up in a death trap: the nearby Messel Pit, a volcanic lake with toxic deep waters and a possible knack for belching out asphyxiating clouds of carbon dioxide.

It's unclear if the lake poisoned or suffocated the snake, fates that more often befell the area's aquatic and flying creatures. Most likely, it somehow died near the lake and was washed in. But no more than two days after eating the lizard, the snake lay dead on the lake floor, entombed in sediments that impeccably preserved it, its meal, and its meal's meal.

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