The new animals deserve the excitement they get because they are truly huge. Although dinosaurs get all the credit, there’s another giant reptile worth mentioning: Meet Titanoboa.
Although its name sounds like a blockbuster, Titanoboa cerrejonensis crawled around in the Paleocene, approximately 66-56 million years ago. A huge snake filled the gap left after the extinction of the dinosaurs and became the main predator in the tropical South American forest where it lived.
The bones of this impressive snake were unearthed in a mine in northern Colombia, in the region known as Cerrejón, one of the world’s most abundant mineral deposits. Researchers compared the two best-preserved vertebrates with modern snake species and determined their approximate sizes.
This huge snake is believed to be between 12.8 and 14.3 m long and weigh more than a tonne. This giant snake lived in an area with dense forests and swamps and probably frightened all other animals around at the time.
“Serrejon is the best and probably the only window into the entire ancient tropical ecosystem anywhere in the world,” said paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
These fossils showed that Titanoboa belonged to the Boidae family. Titanoboa was probably a non-venomous species and probably not very different from modern boas; But instead of using its giant body to crush or strangle its prey to death, it will become an ambush predator and swallow its prey with its massive jaws.
These prey were probably giant turtles or crocodile species, as fossils of these animals were also found in the mine.
Titanoboa is the largest snake that ever lived on Earth. Given its size, researchers have suggested that the average temperature in the tropics would have to be at least 30-34°C to support the metabolism of this massive creature. Thus, these fossils shed light not only on Titanoboa, but also on the environment in which it reigned. Source
Source: Port Altele
