Colubroidea Oppel, 1811

Rage, Jean-Claude, Folie, Annelise, Rana, Rajendra S., Singh, Hukam, Rose, Kenneth D. & Smith, Thierry, 2008, A diverse snake fauna from the early Eocene of Vastan Lignite Mine, Gujarat, India, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 53 (3), pp. 391-403 : 394

Superfamily Colubroidea Oppel, 1811 Family Russellophiidae Rage, 1978

Comments.—The Russellophiidae include only two named genera: Russellophis from the Eocene of Western Europe and Krebsophis from the Cenomanian of Sudan ( Rage and Werner 1999). In addition, an indeterminate genus is likely present in the Paleocene of Brazil ( Rage 1998). Russellophiids are known only from vertebrae. They are easily characterized by a suite of characters: vertebrae elongate; neural arch very vaulted; prezygapophyseal facets horizontal or weakly inclined, generally below the horizontal contrary to almost all other snakes; prezygapophyseal buttresses compressed, forming an anterolateral vertical ridge; frequent presence of a tubercle on the anterior face of the latter ridge; absence of prezygapophyseal processes; ventral face of centrum narrow, well−limited laterally by marked subcentral ridges; absence of hypapophyses in the mid− and posterior trunk regions.

The material from Vastan Mine includes a new species of russellophiid that appears to be morphologically intermediate between Russellophis and Krebsophis . It is tentatively referred to Russellophis .