News Animals

Hundreds of snake species get a new origin story

Elapoid snakes, including cobras, mambas and sea snakes, may have evolved in Asia, not Africa

In this closeup image of a brown snake, you see its head while the rest of its body is coiled in a soft focus background. The snake is a mock viper, which is found throughout Southeast Asia.

The mock viper (Psammodynastes pulverulentus) is found throughout Southeast Asia. That continent is where it and other elapoid snakes first evolved, before many spread globally, a new study finds.

Jeff Weinell

By Jake Buehler

The ancestors of cobras and related snakes first emerged in Asia roughly 35 million years ago.

Many researchers thought the Elapoidea superfamily of snakes evolved in Africa before slithering their way across the globe.