0.75" Eocene Fossil Snake Egg - Bouxwiller, France

This is an unusual fossil: a 0.75" Eocene-aged fossil snake egg from Bouxwiller, in the Alsace region of northastern France. It was laid on the bank of a lake during the Eocene period, about 48 to 40 million years ago. The rock formation was exposed in a now abandoned quarry in 1983, and over 44 vertebrate species have been described since then. Eggs are generally difficult to trace to a single species, so this egg is classified as Ophidenovum, a genus parallel to Linnean taxonomy but reserved only for eggs. In this case, Ophidenovum translates from Latin to literally "of snakes (Ophid-)" and "egg (-ovum)".