Discovery of a snake which hadfour legs with fingers and toes has come from a 113 million-year-old-fossil study. The discovery has provided the first ever evidence for a snake with four legs. Researchers have named the snake Tetrapodophisamplectus.

Nicknamed 'huggy snake', the reptile appeared to have belonged to Brazil and its head size was no more than the size of a human fingernail.

Its front legs were very small, whereas the size of its back legs was slightly longer. Researchers believe that its back legs would have had helped it to grasp its prey.

Researchers also learnt from the fossil that is was more likely to burrow rather than swim, another strong evidence that snake evolved on land.

The credit for the fossil discovery goes to Dr. Dave Martill who found it in a collection in a German museum. "It is generally accepted that snakes evolved from lizards at some point in the distant past. What scientists don't know yet is when they evolved, why they evolved, and what type of lizard they evolved from", said the University of Portsmouth professor.

The fossil discovery is helping researchers find answers to some long-unresolved mysteries related to the evolution of snakes. Researchers have got strong evidence in the form of this discovery that snakes evolved from burrowing lizards, not from marine lizards.

Nick Longrich from the University of Bath's Milner Centre for Evolution conducted a study to see the evolutionary relationships of the specimen.

As an evolutionary biologist, it's incredible to come across the discovery of four-legged snake, said Dr. Longrich.