Snakes
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Hi everyone! I've just returned from Cretaceous Field work in the Glendive area of Eastern Montana and I thought I'd share some information about the only group of reptiles we've found so far: the snakes. 4 caves in Taylorsville Metropark contained snake remains of various species. The Racer, Coluber constrictor, is the most common but we also suspect that Rate snakes Garter snakes and other small to medium forms may have used to the caves for cover or as a source of moisture- though it is also possible that many were drug into the caves by predators.
The ages of these snake remains is not at all clear, though we do know at least one species was present at this site at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and at least one other was present during the mid-Holocene. We also may have remains of pit vipers, probably Rattlesnake, which have never been reported from fossil sites in this region before.
If some of our mystery-snake remains do turn out to be from pit vipers, it will suggest that one or more species of them migrated into Ohio during the middle Holocene only to die off in the region for some unknown reason.
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