Prehistoric snake bones from Zuojiang River Basin, Guangxi, China

ABSTRACT

Based on the morphological studies on the snake bones discovered in the Neolithic sites from the Zuojiang River Basin, Chongzuo, Guangxi, China, three extant snake species attributed to three different genera and three families have been identified: Elaphe moellendorffi (Boettger, 1886), Ophiophagus hannah (Cantor, 1836), and Python bivittatus Kuhl, 1820. Multiple linear regression of four vertebral measurements against the body size for extant specimens using an allometric model indicates a minimum snout-vent length of 3 882.5 mm, total body length of 4 578.7 mm for the largest vertebra of the Neolithic P. bivittatus found in this region. The result indicates a similar herpetofauna between the Neolithic period and current southwest Guangxi, in addition to a potential snake hunting lifestyles of pre-historical humans from the Zuojiang River basin.

KEYWORDS:

• Herpetofauna
• king cobra
• neolithic
• snake osteology
• zooarchaeology
• Zuojiang River

Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFC2601200), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS, No. 193105, to Xi Chen), the National Natural Science Foundation of China: Maxillary morphology, diet, and character evolution of the Cenozoic fossil colubrid snakes in China NSFC 42202014, Jingsong Shi), Open project of State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy: Study on the Cenozoic fossil snakes in China (223124, Jingsong Shi) the National Natural Science Foundation of China: Research on Deep Ray Tracing (NSFC 61872348, Jing Li), and GDAS Special Project of Science and Technology Development (Nos. 2020GDASYL-20200102021, 2020GDASYL-20200301003 to Jingsong Shi and Jing Li). We are grateful to Ying Guan, Yige Bao, and Lei Lei (IVPP) for professional advice, W. Scott Lupien for language improvement, Yuhao Zhao (IVPP) for the assistance in the statistical data analysis, Zhiliang Wang (BFU) for helping with the specimen examination; Lili Lan (IVPP) for repairing the osteological specimens.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).