Eupodophis descouensi
Eupodophis is an extinct genus of snake from the Late Cretaceous period. It has two small hind legs and is considered a transitional form between Cretaceous lizards and limbless snakes. The feature, described as vestigial, was most likely useless to Eupodophis. The type species Eupodophis descouensi was named in 2000 and resides now in the paleontology section of the Mim Museum in Beirut, Lebanon. The specific name is dedicated to the French naturalist Didier Descouens.

Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- EupodophisPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 6.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 100.5 Mya and 93.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Eupodophis descouensi on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Eupodophis descouensi and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Eupodophis descouensi and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
32 taxa- Acanthochirana smithwoodwardi1 site
- Aeger libanensis1 site
- Aphanizocnemus libanensis1 site
- Aves1 site
- Carinacaris teruzzii1 site
- Carpopenaeus callirostris1 site
- Carpopenaeus septemspinatus1 site
- Enantiophoenix electrophyla1 site
- Gebrayelichthys uyenoi1 site
- Glyphiteuthis1 site
- Glyphiteuthis freijii1 site
- Glyphiteuthis libanotica1 site
- Hakelocaris vavassorii1 site
- Libanocaris rogeri1 site
- Linuparus1 site
- Macropenaeus incertus1 site
- Microchela rostrata1 site
- Notahomarus hakelensis1 site
- Odontochelion cretaceum1 site
- Ornithocheiroidea1 site
- Palaeopalinurellus jbeilensis1 site
- Palibacus praecursor1 site
- Palinurus1 site
- Phoenice pasinii1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Eupodophis descouensi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- New specimens of the fossil snake genus Eupodophis Rage and Escuillié, from the mid-Cretaceous of Lebanon1
- Un nouveau serpent bipède du Cénomanien (Crétacé). Implications phylétiques.1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Eupodophis descouensi
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Didier Descouens
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Eupodophis descouensi was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Eupodophis”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itEupodophis through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Rage and Escuillié 2000)