When giants slithered the earth
Sufferers of ophidiophobia* look away now. Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of what is believed to be the biggest snake ever to slither the earth.
The prehistoric reptile known as Titanoboa, which lived in the Colombian rainforest around 60 million years ago, was 13 metres, or 42 feet, weighed around 1,140 kilograms (2,500lb) and would have struggled to squeeze through a standard doorway – just in case you were thinking of inviting one over for lunch.
The snake dwarfs the current heavyweights of the snake world such as the anaconda – even in its movie incarnations – and would have dined on a daily diet consisted of giant turtles and crocodiles.
“Truly enormous snakes really spark people’s imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood,” said Jonathan Bloch, co-led the Lost World-style expedition that resulted in Titanoboa’s discovery.
“The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie ‘Anaconda’ is not as big as the one we found.”
Researchers hope the discovery will also help them measure what the earth’s climate was like during the Paleocene Epoch, a 10 million-year immediately following the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The size of cold-blooded creatures is believed to be related to the climate and a creature the size of titanoboa would have required an average temperature of around 30 to 34 degrees Celsius to survive. By contrast, the current average in the Colombian coastal city of Cartagena is a a balmy 28 degrees Celsius.
* That’s fear of snakes, obviously.