New material of Laophis crotaloides, an enigmatic giant snake from Greece, with an overview of the largest fossil European vipers

Laophis crotaloides was described by Richard Owen as a new and very large fossil viperid snake species from Greece. The type material is apparently lost and the taxon was mostly neglected for more than a century. We here describe a new partial viperid vertebra, collected from the same locality and of equivalent size to the type material. This vertebra indicates that at least one of the three morphological characters that could be used to diagnose L. crotaloides is probably an artifact of the lithographer who prepared the illustration supporting the original description. A revised diagnosis of L. crotaloides is provided on the basis of the new specimen. Despite the fragmentary nature of the new vertebra, it confirms the validity of L. crotaloides, although its exact relationships within Viperidae remain unknown. The new find supports the presence of a large viperid snake in the early Pliocene of northern Greece, adding further data to the diversity of giant vipers from Europe

First description of a fossil chamaeleonid from Greece and its relevance for the European biogeographic history of the group

The fossil record of Chamaeleonidae is very scarce and any new specimen is therefore considered important for our understanding of the evolutionary and biogeographic history of the group. New specimens from the early Miocene of Aliveri (Evia Island), Greece constitute the only fossils of these lizards from southeastern Europe. Skull roofing material is tentatively attributed to the Czech species Chamaeleo cf. andrusovi, revealing a range extension for this taxon, whereas tooth-bearing elements are described as indeterminate chamaeleonids. The Aliveri fossils rank well among the oldest known reptiles from Greece, provide evidence for the dispersal routes of chameleons out of Africa towards the European continent and, additionally, imply strong affinities with coeval chamaeleonids from Central Europe

The last of the large-sized tortoises of the Mediterranean islands

Archaeological investigations carried out in the cave Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro, Bagheria, Sicily, revealed the presence of a few skeletal elements of a large-sized tortoise in a funerary area dating to the Copper/Bronze Age. The tortoise has been AMS-dated revealing an age of 12.5 +/- 0.5 kyr BP and therefore it pre-dates the funerary activities. The morphology of the retrieved skeletal elements differs from that of the only native tortoise currently living in Sicily, Testudo hermanni. The tortoise's size significantly exceeds the size range of extant Te. hermanni and all Testudo spp., as well as that of their known fossils, and suggests a shell length of 50-60 cm. Repeated efforts to obtain DNA sequences from the tortoise of Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro failed, but the morphology of the femur is distinct enough to allow us to erect a new taxon, Solitudo sicula gen. et sp. nov., based on a parsimony analysis. It belongs to a hitherto unrecognized clade that includes other large-sized tortoises from Mediterranean islands, like Malta and Menorca. A review of the pertinent taxa indicates that the remains here described represent the geologically youngest large-sized tortoise of the Mediterranean area