Palaeophiidae is an extinct family of marine

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...

within the infraorder

Alethinophidia :''Common names: advanced snakes.'' The Alethinophidia are an infraorder of snakes that includes all snakes other than blind snakes and thread snakes. Snakes have long been grouped into families within Alethinophidia based on their morphology, e ...

. Species within this family lived from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

to the

Late Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "d ...

, approximately from 70.6 to 33.9 million years ago.Palaeophiidae
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks is a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cre ...

.org Phylogenetic analysis has proposed them as being related to the extant file snakes (family

Acrochordidae The Acrochordidae, commonly known as wart snakes, Java wart snakes, file snakes, elephant trunk snakes, or dogface snakes are a monogeneric family created for the genus ''Acrochordus''. This is a group of basal aquatic snakes found in Australia a ...

), although these results have been disputed since and new analysis show this relationship as poorly supported.

Subfamilies and genera

* Archaeophiinae Rage et al. 2003 ** '' Archaeophis'' Massalongo 1859 * Palaeopheinae Lydekker, 1888 ** '' Palaeophis'' Owen 1841 ** ''

Pterosphenus ''Pterosphenus'' is an extinct genus of marine snake of the Eocene period. Classification ''Pterosphenus'' belong to the Alethinophidia snakes, a clade which includes all snakes outside of blind and thread snakes, and more specifically to th ...

'' Lucas 1898

References

Cretaceous snakes Prehistoric reptile families Cretaceous first appearances Eocene extinctions Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary Taxa named by Richard Lydekker {{snake-stub