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Published online 4 February 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.80
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Scientists find world's biggest snake
'Titanic' boa fossils provide clues to past tropical climate.
Researchers have found fossils of the biggest known snake in the world, a discovery that could shed light on the climate of the tropics in the past.
The scientists estimate the snake lived 58 to 60 million years ago and was around 13 metres long.
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honestly, I am phobic of all snakes even grey earth snakes (you know the ones that look like grey worms) so i can't even imagine meeting this... this would lead me to belive that snakes will get larger in general (not this big but still) wouldn't that also mean that they would grow in numbers and modify their current 'areas' to include new warmer areas... so places like NJ which has primarily 'safe' snakes would then get 'posion' snakes... (okay, so now i will have nightmares tonight) but ... would this be an effect of global warming as well???? never really thought of this... Laura-Ann http://la97.etsy.com macro nature photography, and West African digital art
Great to hear that at least one positive news about my country goes around teh world!!! ;) So what is now going to happend? when are the scientists going to bring it back to the place were it was taken? please someone that knows about this cases inform us! thank you!
Cerrejón is a coal mine located in the Guajira department in the north of Colombia. It is the largest mining operation in Colombia and among the largest open-pit coal mines in the world. The Cerrejón is just 30 miles away from "Cabo de la Vela" (Candle Cape)wich is one of the most exotic places to go in Colombia... just for being relax and quiet.... walking along the rochyshore.... with great view!!!. sand and sea!!
I have always been scared of snakes....Walking on a rochyshore with a great view in this part of Colombia will not happen for me.....I dont want to meet this snakes present day cousin lol Anyone care to explain how 2 of this monster snakes got on Noahs ark ;)
For several years, farmers in the region, from the El Cerrejon mine in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta between the departments of Cesar and La Guajira in northern Colombia, has found some fossil remains large. Unfortunately, the lack of leadership and ivestigación systematically has not allowed the study and development of research around the area. That is a good reason for encouraging initiatives at local, regional and national efforts to explore and research centers.
Im not surprised with the size of this ancient snake. As an owner of a 15 ft Burmese Python I know how agressively Large snakes can hunt and consume other animals. Especially in warm climates such as here in California. Personaly I enjoy handleing my large reptile and regularly handle large rattle snakes i find in the wild. Never been bit thank god. I would have loved to see this one in the wild,,,,At a safe distance of course. To see it Hunt and feed would have been a real treat for me. Unlike other people I have a real facination for snakes, I would not be surprised if even larger snakes than this one existed. This one was probably an average one. Terence. California USA
Supercool news I have to say! It is not everyday that You hear or see about these kinds of things or scientific news. Something I am personally amazed and puzzled with. Even though I´m Swedish and living in Sweden this news reached and came to us and me as well. Now I have a question to someone here who reads this; Have the scientists who discovered this come up with more or new facts about this case and how shall I get new information about this archeoligical findings from now on? Shall I get a copy of the magazine in printed paper version? Then I have an answer to mister Andrés Duque who has given his comments here above, asking a question about the whereabouts or circumstances regarding the relics or fysical and arheological remains where they are. From the latest information I have they are at the museum of natural history in state Florida in the USA (according to a newspaper called Expressen here in my home country Sweden, their site on the Internet being www.expressen.se, the place from where I myself found and learnt this remarkable news and information). If Colombia will get the fossils back I know nothing about. Bye bye from me for this time, take care You all scientific fans and we´ll see what news await in the future, Hanna Arvidson in Sweden
I think this is amazingly scary! I just hope no one tries to clone this thing. Now that would be scary. If they would still exist please let me know so I can steer farrrrrrrr away from it!
For Andres and others concerned about repatriation of this important piece of national heritage, the information is in the supplemetray information to the paper by Head et al.: "The official fossil repository is Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Geologico-Mineras, Bogota, Colombia. Complete cast collections will also be housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville."
When I first saw the film "ANACONDA", I have become very scared of snakes.Since then I used to have nightmares about snakes.Gradually I have got myself rid of this irrational fear about snake,by convincing myself by the fact that anaconda does not grow this larger in reality.But this news of finding sankes's fossil has come to me as a fearsome one.All I am trying to do is to find an answer of the following question.Can an anconda grow this big?Is it possible?
I would like to know the dimensions of the vertibrae shown in the photo - the article just mention the possible length of the snake but not the body width. It also seems that the skull is not yet found - would be interesting to see how it compares with that of a modern snake! Btw, as a Chinese from the Guangdong area, I must say snakes, even giant ones, make us think of feasts and potent medicine.
I find it a bit strange that the length of the titanboa is about twice the lenght of a (big) modern anaconda. But the size of that bone is at least 5-6 times the size of the one from the modern snake. Soo, titanboa was kinda chubby, huh?
Would not a larger bone structure require a much larger muscle mass?
Congratulations to colombian researchers that made this discovery. Hopefully fossils return soon to Colombia !!!
How it is going to fit into the changing scenario of climate change - this needs to be studied first before reaching to submit generalisation. Dr. R. Dayal Yadav
In reponse to Sylvia K.s inquiry, Noah's ark was about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. And most likely, dinosaurs (or dragons) which grew more than a hundred feet in length (larger than this snake) were most likely young, smaller animals. Heres a link to additional information on the ark: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/really-a-flood-and-ark. :)
I am Brazilian, I love the news. I hope that with this discovery we can better understand the evolution of our planet, but also the evolution of Latin America. Venham conhecer o Brasil!
Actually, this is a fantastic discover. In the future, scientists may even find out more and more gigants
I can´t see any of the research team leading this proyect. I wonder if someone of them is Colombian
It serve for understand how the global warming real affect the nature and the life itself. I think that if these regions were hotter than now, there is a demonstration that certain ecosystems considered weak, like tropical forest, can endure drastic climate changes, because this is not the first time that they have to face it. I'm just saying that we shouldn't see phenomena like global warming as evil processes, and I denote the importance of these studies about the past in the understanding of the consequences of our actions in present.
To Jorge Castillo: Three of the authors were Colombian.
Thanks to everyone for the questions. Here are some answers. About the dimensions of the snake: The diameter of the snake at its thickest point would probably be 60-75 centimetres, according to study coauthor David Polly at Indiana University. The biggest individual vertebrae are a little over 10 centimetres wide, and the large bone structure would indeed require a larger muscle mass. About the comparison to anacondas: According to snake expert Harry Greene at Cornell University, some scientists believe that anacondas more than 7 metres long could be roaming the Amazon Basin. The biggest reported anaconda is 11 metres long, though some debate the reliability of this report. Raising an anaconda in hotter temperatures might allow it to grow bigger, says Polly, but it's not clear whether it could reach the size of a Titanoboa. About the effect of global warming: Yes, it's possible that snakes will expand their habitats with global warming, says Polly. He says habitat changes have already been seen for mammals, though he does not know of any reports for snakes.
Readers of this report of the ancient monster snake (Titanoboa cerrejonensis), may be interested to know about the largest constrictor snake I saw and measured during my research in the Philippine rainforest. It was killed by an Agta man named Kekek Aduanan a short distance from a camp where my family and I lived in with a group of Agta hunter-gatherers. That was on June 9, 1970. It was a reticulated python (Python reticulatus, Pythonidae). It was 6.9 m long, only 46% the length of the Titanoboa fossil, but still large enough to kill and swallow a human. Cornell herpetologist Harry Greene (who is quoted in today's NATURE report) co-presented with me a paper in 2007 at the Society for Anthropological Sciences were we described aspects of the symbiosis between Philippine pythons and Agta foragers. Our talk included a table of the five Agta in our records who were killed by pythons during the years I lived with them. Thomas N. Headland (Feb. 4, 2009)
Lalit K i dont buy it,No way that ark story is true what did all those animals eat? poor Noah;) Mohsin Karim try watching snakes on a plane i doubt u can last the whole movie,I didn't....
I have read that scientists believe that some animals in tropical canopy locations, actually never stopped growing until they died. This is why we see so many large fossils of smaller animals that we have today. Perhaps like this titanic-sized snake, I have also read that when the earth had this tropical canopy, that's when we had animals as well as people living longer too. Thus they had a longer time to continue to grow (animals, not humans). I too have seen the www.answersingenesis.org website, very good. The Creation Museum is excellent in Cincinnati, Ohio/Kentucky area. This snake discovery is too awesome and I can't wait to see actual pictures of it's fossil.
scientist must now to investigate the ancient life of South America. I think, this country, Colombia, can show key information over the time of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs have been the Jurasic stars, but the kife was more than them in that time.
I Think this is the very big achivment of human beings. This specis can help us to try the real condition of cold blooded animals. Rahul kamble Snake rescuer Maharashtra
This discovery make me think about a scaring movie talking about a giant snake.Fortunately they only found its fossil but not itself.
Yes indeed its a very interesting discovery. Scientists can really make out the interconnections of animal life to their environment. Its a lesson to those who may think global warming is not a serious issue.
Mbanga Muleba, The discovery of a large reptile during the Palaeocene age has nothing to do with global warming. It was merely stated that reptiles then as now are cold blooded and due to the nature of their physiology increase their size based on the climate as well as their food source. Obviously with larger herbivores come larger predators, it is only natural. The earth changes, whether it be the fault of man or the fault of natural occurrences such as volcanoes, wildfires or comets which displace millions of tons of sediment into the atmosphere. In the last two hundred years industrialization has surely helped this along but with advances in alternative fuel sources and the increased awareness of dwindling "fossil fuel" reserves it is highly unlikely that the human race has had more than a minute impact on the planet at large.
Numerous stories are in place that huge serpents, several times the size of the the largest present day serpents..the anacondas and pythons, once lived majestically on earth. That might be during Mesozoic, the golden age of reptiles, when the whole earth was full of forest and reptiles themselves were represented by 16 orders. Sadly only 4 orders remain...So is the case of the snakes...Many could have gone with advent of birds and man. No human has really seen something huge like this. Now that we have evidence that these huge serpents really exist... Its no more a myth!
hi everyone, i study biology since a couple of years now and am interessted in physiology, and have myself 2 snakes at home. additionally i want to bring some new ideas to think about. Parameters which limit growth: ___* temperatur (every one already reads) ___* O2 and CO2 concentrations for respiration (simplify diffusion = simplify Ventilation = lesser work for getting needed O2 therefor limits the respiration and metabolism relationship = therefor restricts the growth either ___* Density of the outer-medium ore gravity which makes you feel your weigth causes more or less energy for movement, therfore animals in water reach higher volum and mass as relatives on land. [--> anacondas are as big because they are actually habit is in and around water] as secondary growthlimitation: ___* genetic range of both gender (female snaks in general are bigger, the males smaller, but the relation cant be as big because at some ration no reproduction ist possible (corollary reason) -> the find can be a big woman (> not every snake of this species is as big) ___* Food must be available in relativ density or consumable needed size for hunting effort relation > therefor when snaks have been such big the prey must be in relation as big or in great individual number. ___conclusion: ___~not only the temperatur was high the O2 conzentration must have been also higher then today, the prey individual number and size should be bigger then today. facts which have alrady been proven to be so. ___predictions: ___~somewhere i read something like hopefully no-one will clone it...> since today we have other conditions the cloned snake would not be as big as the ancient found. ___~someone meant it would be dangerous to be in closely regions such giant snakes, of course its dangerous buy happily you see the snake, more dangerous are poisend snake, they are smaller and thus not able to be seen before they attack.
For the record, it might be interesting to note that in 2004 Nature rejected our manuscript with the theory on which the present authors have based their exciting reconstructions of the paleoclimate temperatures (Makarieva et al. 2005). The reason was that there were too many other interesting papers competing for space in the journal, so ours could not make it. The manuscript was not even sent out for evaluation by the referees. It is truly rewarding that despite such a discouraging experience our results were ultimately valued and proved useful for such an exciting study.
this s an excellent research and a feather cap in d field of fossils!
woahh; that is insane ! glad to know that there are no more enormous snakes like that around. Of course, the size of the current living anaconda, or any other snakes for that matter, couldn't possibley get that size, could it ? :)
Hello everybody, Could someone know about my search.. Do you have an artist's reconstruction of the titanoboa' skeleton? Thanks you very much, Aurélie.