What Aspidites really are...

[RAD House]

This is very interesting. Is it a primordial form or just an example of convergent evolution? By saying it is primordial you are implying that the ancestors of both groups had a system similar to the Aspidites, but this evolved into something more complex in Boidea. If the two organs are in fact so different I would more likely think it is an example of convergent evolution, which more supports your idea of being two separate families. Proving them to be part of an extinct family may be rather difficult unless you have preserved DNA or full skeletal remains from species with in said family.

[PatrickT]

Originally Posted by MesoCorney

This is very interesting. Is it a primordial form or just an example of convergent evolution? By saying it is primordial you are implying that the ancestors of both groups had a system similar to the Aspidites, but this evolved into something more complex in Boidea. If the two organs are in fact so different I would more likely think it is an example of convergent evolution, which more supports your idea of being two separate families. Proving them to be part of an extinct family may be rather difficult unless you have preserved DNA or full skeletal remains from species with in said family.

Its hard to say. Aspidites definitly have heat "sensor" under their rostral. But its completly different to the heat pits we know from pythons. It could be the primordiwl form of those pits or simply convergent evolution. The problem is that most snake fossils are very fragmented. So it would be hard to prove. All we know so far is that they are not really Pythons at all from an genetic point of view.