Extant large constrictors, pythons and boas, have a wholly allopatric distribution that has been interpreted largely in terms of vicariance in Gondwana. Here, we describe a stem pythonid based on complete skeletons from the early-middle Eocene of Messel, Germany. The new species is close in age to the divergence of Pythonidae from North American Loxocemus and corroborates a Laurasian origin and dispersal of pythons. Remarkably, it existed in sympatry with the stem boid Eoconstrictor. These occurrences demonstrate that neither dispersal limitation nor strong competitive interactions were decisive in structuring biogeographic patterns early in the history of large, hyper-macrostomatan constrictors and exemplify the synergy between phylogenomic and palaeontological approaches in reconstructing past distributions.
Keywords: Eocene; Messel; Pythonidae; biogeography; convergent evolution; macrostomatan ecomorph.