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The diets of early lizards and snakes may have been more varied and advanced than previously believed, according to new research looking at their prehistoric teeth.
Scientists originally thought that squamates – the collective term for the 10,000 species of lizards and snakes – only began getting a taste for a much wider variety of food sources after dinosaurs became extinct.
But a study led by the University of Bristol, published in Royal Society Open Science, suggests they may have already possessed the full spectrum of diet types 100 million years ago, including flesh-eating and plant-based, seen today.
A team looked at fossil teeth and jaws from the Cretaceous period, between 145-66 million years ago.