Dinilysia
Sign in to saveDinilysia (meaning "terrible ilysia") is an extinct genus of snake from the Late Cretaceous (Coniacian) of South America. Dinilysia was a relatively large ambush predator, measuring approximately long. The skull morphology of Dinilysia is similar to boids, suggesting that it was able to consume large prey., Living in a desert-like environment, Dinilysia is likely a terrestrial or a semi-fossorial animal. thumb|left|Hypothetical appearance of Dinilysia patagonica (reconstruction based on skeletal and other features).
Article
5 sectionsContents
- Physiology and lineage
- Theories of origin
- Ecology
- References
- Further reading
Dinilysia (meaning "terrible ilysia") is an extinct genus of snake from the Late Cretaceous (Coniacian) of South America. Dinilysia was a relatively large ambush predator, measuring approximately long. The skull morphology of Dinilysia is similar to boids, suggesting that it was able to consume large prey., Living in a desert-like environment, Dinilysia is likely a terrestrial or a semi-fossorial animal. thumb|left|Hypothetical appearance of Dinilysia patagonica (reconstruction based on skeletal and other features).
== Physiology and lineage == left|thumb|Bony inner ear labyrinth of Dinilysia patagonica The Dinilysia patagonica is a stem snake that is very closely related to the original ancestor of the clade of crown snakes. Once the fossil of the snake was discovered, an x-ray computed tomography was used to build a digitized endocast of its inner ear. The results displayed that the Dinilysia patagonica's inner ear anatomy had three main parts. It had a large spherical vestibule, large foramen ovale, and slender semicircular canals in its inner ear.