This snake ruled the earth after the dinosaurs disappeared. It grew up to more than 45 feet long."Jonathan Bloch, of the University of Florida, was one of the researchers who analysed the remains of the snake, the biggest that ever lived.
He said: “It was not only the biggest predator in the region, as far as we know, but it was the largest terrestrial vertebrate known on the face of the planet for at least 10 million years."
Titanoboa (meaning "Titan Boa") was a genus of snake that lived approximately 60 to 58 million years ago, in the Paleocene period.[1] The only known species was Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the largest snake ever discovered.[1] By comparing the sizes and shapes of its fossilized vertebrae to those of modern snakes, researchers estimated that T. cerrejonensis was around 13 metres (43 ft) long, weighed more than 1,100 kilograms (2,400 lb), and measured about 1 metre (3.3 ft) wide at the thickest point on the snake's body. The fossils of 28 individual T. cerrejonensis were found in the coal mines of Cerrejón in northern Colombia in 2009.[1][2] Prior to this discovery, few fossils of Paleocene-period vertebrates had been found in ancient tropical environments of South America.[3]
The snake was discovered on an expedition by a team of international scientists led by Jonathan Bloch, a University of Florida vertebrate paleontologist, and Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobotanist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.[4]
“It had a very low metabolic rate,” Dr. Head said.
View the original article at Times.co.uk here.View the Wikipedia article here.
View the GlobeandMail.com article here.
A vertebra from a modern Anaconda boid compared with the type vertebra of Titanoboa.Photo by Ray Carson, UF News Bureau. From the UF press release.
View this picture's (above) original article here.
A handout photo released by Nature magazine shows a Precloacal vertebra of an adult Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus),lighter colored vertebra dwarfed by a vertebra of the giant boid snake they named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, meaning ``titanic boa from Cerrejon,'' the region where it was found. Fossils from northeastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 feet or longer, reaching an estimated 1.27 tons. (AP Photo/University of Florida) Kenneth Krysko)
View this picture's (above) original article here.
I bet in your time they discover Yggdrasil.
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