An unexpected snake fossil (Pythonidae, <i>Python</i> ) from Taiwan

The fossil record of Taiwan has produced various major clades (e.g. mammals, turtles, crocodiles and birds), but the lepidosaur/squamate fossil remains poorly known from Taiwan. Here, we report an unexpected snake fossil, a large single trunk vertebra, from the Pleistocene of Taiwan. This fossil vertebra from the Pleistocene of Taiwan shows a combination of morphological features, indicating its taxonomic assignment to the genus Python. No extant members of the genus Python inhabit the main island of Taiwan. Our discovery of a Pleistocene Python (up to 4 m long), with recent palaeontological progress on large predators including the longirostrine crocodylians and sabre-toothed cat, highlights the presence of a palaeo-ecosystem, which greatly differs from the present and further underscores a radical faunal turnover to the modern biodiversity in Taiwan. Interestingly, the modern ecosystems of Taiwan are devoid of top predators, but the large Python from the Pleistocene of Taiwan coexisted with other top predators, such as Homotherium and Toyotamaphimeia. We hypothesise that the modern ecosystem of Taiwan may have yet to recover from the Pleistocene extinction event. Further fossil collecting with updated large-scale analyses should promise to reveal more about the faunal turnover, resulting in the emergence of modern biodiversity.