Scientists discover fossilised remains of world's longest snake
Scientists have found the fossilised bones of a "monster" snake that was more than 40 feet long and weighed more than a ton.
The creature, which has been named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, slithered around the South American rainforest more than 60 million years ago.
Longer than a London bus, it was the largest snake ever to have slithered the earth.
Paleontologists compared around a dozen vertebrae, which are ten centimetres long, with the length of existing snakes to estimate the beast must have reached 42ft (13m).
The ten centimetre vertebrae were about twice the width of the largest taken from a 19.5ft (6m) modern-day anaconda.
None of the ribs included in the fossil, found at a site in northern Colombia, are complete, but the size and curvature of the fragments suggest it was the largest non-marine vertebrate from the age immediately following the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The discovery of Titanoboa, a relative of the boa constrictor, also has implications for our understanding of the evolution of global climate because the snake would have required temperatures that are hotter than in today's tropics.
Titanoboa, described in the weekly science journal Nature, was dug up at Cerrejon, one of the world's largest open-pit mines, where as well as the snake researchers discovered fossils of their prey including crocodiles and turtles.
Lead researcher Dr Jason Head, of the University of Toronto, said: "The discovery of Titanoboa challenges our understanding of past climates and environments, as well as the biological limitations on the evolution of giant snakes.
"This shows how much more information about the history of Earth there is to glean from a resource like the reptile fossil record."
Titanoboa's size indicates it lived in an environment where the average yearly temperature was 86F to 93F (30C to 34C).
Staff scientist Dr Carlos Jaramillo, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, said: "This temperature estimate is much hotter than modern temperatures in tropical rainforests anywhere in the world
"The fossil floras that the Smithsonian has been collecting in Cerrejon for many years indicate that the area was a tropical rainforest.
"That means that tropical rainforests could exist at temperatures three to four degrees Celsius hotter than modern tropical rainforests experience."
The python held the world's record for length of a snake, with the largest ever measured at 10m (33ft).
Even though the longest python is longer than the record-holding anaconda, the girth of the anaconda is far bigger.
In an accompanying commentary climatologist Dr Matthew Huber, of Purdue University, Indiana, said: "The discovery in Colombia of a giant species of fossil snake is news in itself. But a wider, more controversial inference to be drawn is that tropical climate in the past was not buffered from global warming.
"As the world uneasily eyes a warmer future, a large community of researchers is investigating the past for the insights it might provide into the likely magnitude of climatic and ecological change.
"The findings attest to the resiliency of tropical ecosystems in the face of extreme warming, but more work is clearly necessary. For the moment, however, the burden of proof is on those who argue that the tropics do not warm substantially in a greenhouse world."
Scientists discover fossilised remains of world's longest snake - Telegraph
***********************
That shit is HUGE
Scientists have found the fossilised bones of a "monster" snake that was more than 40 feet long and weighed more than a ton.
The creature, which has been named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, slithered around the South American rainforest more than 60 million years ago.
Longer than a London bus, it was the largest snake ever to have slithered the earth.
Paleontologists compared around a dozen vertebrae, which are ten centimetres long, with the length of existing snakes to estimate the beast must have reached 42ft (13m).
The ten centimetre vertebrae were about twice the width of the largest taken from a 19.5ft (6m) modern-day anaconda.
None of the ribs included in the fossil, found at a site in northern Colombia, are complete, but the size and curvature of the fragments suggest it was the largest non-marine vertebrate from the age immediately following the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The discovery of Titanoboa, a relative of the boa constrictor, also has implications for our understanding of the evolution of global climate because the snake would have required temperatures that are hotter than in today's tropics.
Titanoboa, described in the weekly science journal Nature, was dug up at Cerrejon, one of the world's largest open-pit mines, where as well as the snake researchers discovered fossils of their prey including crocodiles and turtles.
Lead researcher Dr Jason Head, of the University of Toronto, said: "The discovery of Titanoboa challenges our understanding of past climates and environments, as well as the biological limitations on the evolution of giant snakes.
"This shows how much more information about the history of Earth there is to glean from a resource like the reptile fossil record."
Titanoboa's size indicates it lived in an environment where the average yearly temperature was 86F to 93F (30C to 34C).
Staff scientist Dr Carlos Jaramillo, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, said: "This temperature estimate is much hotter than modern temperatures in tropical rainforests anywhere in the world
"The fossil floras that the Smithsonian has been collecting in Cerrejon for many years indicate that the area was a tropical rainforest.
"That means that tropical rainforests could exist at temperatures three to four degrees Celsius hotter than modern tropical rainforests experience."
The python held the world's record for length of a snake, with the largest ever measured at 10m (33ft).
Even though the longest python is longer than the record-holding anaconda, the girth of the anaconda is far bigger.
In an accompanying commentary climatologist Dr Matthew Huber, of Purdue University, Indiana, said: "The discovery in Colombia of a giant species of fossil snake is news in itself. But a wider, more controversial inference to be drawn is that tropical climate in the past was not buffered from global warming.
"As the world uneasily eyes a warmer future, a large community of researchers is investigating the past for the insights it might provide into the likely magnitude of climatic and ecological change.
"The findings attest to the resiliency of tropical ecosystems in the face of extreme warming, but more work is clearly necessary. For the moment, however, the burden of proof is on those who argue that the tropics do not warm substantially in a greenhouse world."
Scientists discover fossilised remains of world's longest snake - Telegraph
***********************
That shit is HUGE
