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| Titanoboa cerrejonensis measured 48 feet, weighed as much as a car, and had a body more than a yard thic. The monster relative of the boa constrictor lived in northern Colombia 60 million years ago |
Among all the predators discovered, this may be one of the greatest discoveries since the T-Rex: a snake, around 48 feet long, weighing in at 2,500 pounds. Uncovered from a treasure of fossils in a Colombian coal mine, “Cerrejón”, this serpent reveals a lost world of giant creatures. Want to meet this monster predator? You might have to travel back to the period following the extinction of dinosaurs.!!
‘This is a find that seems so fantastic that it may appear to be an object of fantasy. A creature that has sprung from a Spielberg-imagined past and yes, it has a name that evokes a giant and mythic monster. It is called Titanoboa (meaning: Titanic Boa),’ David Royale, the Smithsonian Channel's head of programming, announced.
At its thickest, Titanoboa had a diameter of three feet. The color of the skin is muddy which enabled it to camouflage easily in its environment.
Not far from the coast of Caribbean lies an empty forest, with scarce vegetation cover and dusty roads which lead you to huge pits stretching over a circumference of 15 miles. This area lying in the north of Columbia is known as, “Cerrejón” and is home to one of the largest coal operations of the world, area larger than Washington DC. Cerrejón is one of the richest fossil deposits in the world, providing archeologists with an opportunity to explore the emerging environmental changes.
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| The skull of Titanoboa was used to reconstruct the fearsome predator. |
The first team to discover its fossils include Jonathan Bloch, a paleontologist and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History and Carlos Jaramillo from Smithson Tropical Research Institute, in Panama. What’s fascinating about their exploration is that not only the fossils found belong to the largest snake of the earth but also for the first time ever the skull of the snake was discovered intact. Snake skulls are almost never found as they are extremely fragile and they usually disintegrate. Researchers believe that the skull would enable them to have a better understanding of its evolution, size and diet.
So far 28 individual Titanoboa fossils have been excavated from Cerrejón in the year 2009.
Titanoboa existed at a time 5 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct. At this point in time, Cerrejón was a swampy tropical jungle with hotter climate and temperatures reaching up to 90 Fahrenheit, forests teeming with 12 feet long giant turtles, known as Carbonemys, seven feet long lungfish and giant crocodiles. Titanoboa was the largest predator on land after the extinction of the dinosaurs for at least 10 million years, maybe longer.
Titanoboa looked like a boa constrictor of modern days, but it behaved more like an anaconda and was believed to hunt like a crocodile. It used to feast on prehistoric crocodiles and Carbonemys.
Researchers believe that the hotter climate in that era enabled the cold-blooded snakes to grow bigger in size than the modern snakes. It was two times larger than the world’s largest extant snake, Python reticulatus i.e., 29 feet long.
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| Florida Museum researcher Jonathan Bloch compares vertebrae from Titanoboa cerrejonensis, left, with one from a 17-foot anaconda. Florida Museum photo by Jeff Gage. |
(Photo Credits: Florida Museum of Natural History )
Dr Jason Head, of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, in Washington DC, said: 'Now we have a window into the time just after the dinosaurs went extinct and can actually see what the animals replacing them looked like.' He added: 'This colossal, boa constrictor-like creature stretched longer than a city bus and weighed more than a car. It's the biggest snake the world has ever known.
The Smithsonian Channel has created a film that chronicles the discovery of the 48 foot long and 2,500 pound snake that existed more than 60 million years ago - and recreates what the predator might have looked like. The film has been promoted with a life-size statue which was on show in New York's Grand Central.
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| Titanoboa Replica On Display At Grand Central Terminal. |
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