Dear Kitty. Some blog

December 4, 2008

Biggest snake ever discovered in Colombia [Environment, Mammals, Reptiles, Biology] — Administrator @ 6:46 pm


This National Geographic video is called Reticulated Python/Anaconda Comparison.

From National Wildlife Magazine in the USA:

Record-Size Snake Nothing to Hiss At

PALEONTOLOGISTS WORKING in Colombia have discovered the fossil remains of a snake so huge it is more like the main attraction of a cheesy horror film than a product of evolution.

Only a dozen or so vertebrae—bones of the spine—have turned up, but they provide enough evidence to show that this creature, an as-yet unnamed relative of boa constrictors, was the largest snake species on record.

Sizing It Up

The really big constrictors of our world rarely exceed 30 feet long. The longest on record was a reticulated python that reached 33 feet. The record weight for a modern snake came from a green anaconda, which tipped the scales at 550 pounds (but was a couple feet shorter than the lither python).

The fossil serpent was built on a different order of magnitude. Jonathan Bloch, the University of Florida, Gainesville, paleontologist who, with colleagues, discovered the bones, estimates that this one would have measured no less than 42 feet long. Its body was probably close to 4 feet in diameter and weighed over 1.25 tons.—Roger Di Silvestro

See also, more extensively, here. The fossil snake is from “about 60 million years ago”; so, from the Palaeocene.

See also here. And here. And here.

Fossil snakes from Venezuela: here.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2009) — Smithsonian researchers working in Colombia’s Cerrejón coal mine have unearthed the first megafossil evidence of a neotropical rainforest. Titanoboa, the world’s biggest snake, lived in this forest 58 million years ago at temperatures 3-5 C warmer than in rainforests today, indicating that rainforests flourished during warm periods: here.

Skeletal remains of a diminutive primate from the Paleocene of Germany: here. And here.

Leopard snakes: here. And here.

3 Comments »

The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://dearkitty.blogsome.com/2008/12/04/biggest-snake-ever-discovered-in-colombia/trackback/

  1. Anaconda is no more the largest snake known to exist on earth. Take a look at this article that talks about the fossil finds of the largest snake believed to have lived on earth:-

    http://www.kanbal.com/index.php?/Animals/worlds-largest-snake-titanoboa.html

    Comment by Rita — February 4, 2009 @ 8:38 pm

  2. Hi Rita, thanks. Direct access to that URL is here.

    Comment by Administrator — February 5, 2009 @ 2:52 am

  3. Fossil snake said to break length record:
    An ancient South American snake that might make
    today’s feared anacondas seem almost cuddly is
    renewing discussion on why giant species evolve.

    http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090204_titanoboa

    Comment by Administrator — February 26, 2009 @ 1:56 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>


Get free blog up and running in minutes with Blogsome | Theme designs available here

free web site hit counter