The family has a fossil record stretching back 60 million years to the Paleocene[4] and was most diverse in the continental interior during the Eocene and Oligocene.

[5] The fossil record of the Rhineuridae extends back almost to the Mesozoic, with the oldest rhineurid, Plesiorhineura tsentasai, occurring in the Early Paleocene.

The fossil rhineurids are known exclusively from North America, but show that the group once had a much wider distribution than the current range of R. floridana, with species known from Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, and as far west as Oregon.

The distribution range of rhineurids shrank southward as global temperatures continued to fall, leaving R. floridana isolated in Florida as the only living representative of the group.

[5] Bipes biporus (Bipedidae) Blanus cinereus (Blanidae) Amphisbaena alba (Amphisbaenidae) Trogonophis wiegmanni (Trogonophidae) Rhineura floridana †Hadrorhineura hibbardi †Protorhineura hatcherii †Dyticonastis rensbergeri †Spathorhynchus fossorium †Spathorhynchus natronicus †Macrorhineura skinneri †Ototriton solidus †Hyporhina galbreathi †Hyporhina antiqua