Digitally created image of a winged snake is being shared as a real snake - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
June 30, 2022
A social media post accompanying an image of a winged snake is being widely shared as if the image shows a real snake. Comments on the post  show that people are perceiving to be a real creature. Through this article let’s fact-check the veracity of the image.
Claim: Image of a winged snake.
Fact: The viral image does not show any real creature, but was created using digital tools. The creator of the image shared the image on Deviant art, back in 2010. He also shared the two separate sources from which he collected the images of a snake and wings individually. Currently there doesn’t exist any creature like winged snake. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The image shared in the viral do not show any real creature but is created using digital graphics. Reverse image search of the photo led us to the same image on Deviant Art, an online social community for artists and art enthusiasts.
A user named ‘Kuramay’ shared the same image in 2010, saying that he has created it for a computer graphic project. Further, he also provided two separate sources from which he collected the images of a snake and wings individually. This establishes the fact that the image was created using digital tools.
Moreover, there doesn’t exist any creature like winged snake as on date. There is no recorded evidence or images to show the existence of such creature even in the past. However, in 2017, scientists have found fossils of a winged serpent in a sink hole in eastern Tennessee. As per the research paper co-authored by palaeontologists of University of Pennsylvania, the serpent lived five million years ago. And surprisingly, the fossils did not match any known species of snake, living or extinct. The researchers named the new genus and species Zilantophis schuberti.
To sum it up, digitally created image of a winged snake is being shared as a real snake.