OOTS #876 - The Discussion Thread

[Harry Leipzig]

It's amazing how these comic threads can create discussions about almost every topic that is brought up in the comic in question.

To further elaborate on the lizard/snake debate, lizards and snakes are squamates, or scaled reptiles, one of four groups of reptiles. Together with tuataras, they are a sister group to the archosaurs, which includes dinosaurs, crocodilians, and birds. Fossil evidence for lizards and snakes dates back to the Jurassic Period, but recent mitochondrial phylogeny suggests that squamates first appeared in the late Permian.

While the current theory is that snakes evolved from burrowing lizards due to vestigial hips in some snake species, the lack of snake-ancestor and early snake fossils, and their comparatively fast genetic clocks, makes their connection to other squamates difficult to pin down.

The more you know.