Pachyrhachisとは 意味・読み方・使い方

Pachyrhachis is an extinct genus of snake with well developed hind legs known from fossils discovered Ein Yabrud, near Ramallah, in the central West Bank. It is one of three genera of Cenomanian snakes with hindlimbs. Many of today's modern pythons and boas still have small bone spurs, where limbs would have been millions of years ago. Pachyrhachis snakes would have only been about 1 m (3-4 ft) long. Pachyrhachis was originally described by Haas (1979, 1980) who noted it had a puzzling melange of snake and lizard features; its status as a primitive snake was later confirmed (Caldwell and Lee 1997). The position of Pachyrhachis within snakes is debated (e.g. Lee and Scanlon 2002; Rieppel et al. 2003).