American scientists have established that a giant boa constrictor lived on Earth millions of years ago. This discovery allows not only to learn more about the past, but, possibly, to look into the future.
Titanoboa layout
About 58 million years ago, a snake of incredible size crawled out of the swampy South American jungle. This creature could terrify anyone.
The reptile weighed over a ton and was 14 meters long. She could swallow a whole crocodile and not choke.
But a few years ago, scientists did not suspect the existence of this fossil animal.
“Even in our wildest dreams, it was impossible to imagine that we would find a 14-meter boa constrictor. The largest modern snake is half the size,” says Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Institute for Tropical Research and one of the authors of the discovery.
The snake, which received the Latin name Titanoboa cerrejonensis (colossal boa from Kerrejon), is called a distant relative of the anaconda and the modern boa constrictor. She was not poisonous, but killed her victims with tremendous compressive force: more than 180 kg per 6.4 sq. cm. Approximately the same load would be received by a person who fell under a load weighing one and a half Brooklyn bridges.
The fossils of a giant snake were found during excavations in an open coal mine in the town of Kerrejon in Colombia. In 2002, scientists discovered at this site fossils of the tropical jungle of the Paleocene era - perhaps even the very first such forest on the planet.
In addition to petrified plants, many reptiles have been found, the size of which is amazing.
“We have discovered the lost world of giant reptiles: turtles the size of a kitchen table and the largest crocodile fossils in research history,” said Jonathan Bloch, an expert in vertebrate evolution at the University of Florida.
Among the finds was a giant snake.
"After the extinction of the dinosaurs, this animal, Titanoboa, was the largest carnivore on Earth, and it continued for about 10 million years," Bloch explains. "It was a very large animal - no matter how you look at it."
In search of fossil skulls
However, in order to get a complete picture of what the prehistoric snake looked like, what it ate and how it relates to the modern animal world, scientists needed to study the remains of a reptile's skull.
“After the dinosaurs became extinct 60 million years ago, it was much hotter at the equator than it is today. We believe that this is why the reptiles grew to very large sizes.” (Jonathan Bloch.)
Last year, a special research group was sent to Colombia to search for the Titanoboa skull, which, however, had little hope of success. The fact is that the bones of the snake skull are very fragile, and a very small number of fossil skulls have survived to this day.
"Unlike our skulls, the bones in the skull of a snake are not held together. They are linked by tissue," says Jason Head, a serpentologist at the University of Nebraska, USA.
“When an animal dies, the connective tissue decays, and individual bones tend to scatter,” continues the scientist. “Plus, they are very thin and fragile and often break down. But because Titanoboa was so big and had very large bones, it’s one of the few the snakes that we know from the fossils. "
To the amazement of the group, they managed to find the remains of three skulls, with the help of which they were able to completely reconstruct the skull of a giant reptile for the first time.
Thus, we managed to get to know better how Titanoboa lived and looked like. Now in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the United States, a life-size dummy snake is on display. In 2013, the exhibit will go on a tour of America.
The discovery of a new species of huge fossil snake helps scientists not only learn about the ancient animal world, but also gain new information about the history of the earth's climate. This means that the fossils can tell us about the consequences of the current global warming.
Snakes are unable to regulate their temperature and depend on external heat to survive.
“Tropical plants and ecosystems can cope with high temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide. This is another major problem associated with the current global warming trend” (Carlos Jaramillo).
"We think Titanoboa got so big because after the dinosaurs died out 60 million years ago, it was much hotter at the equator than it is today. We believe that is why the reptiles have grown to be very large."
Bloch notes that the ability of animals to survive in conditions of high temperatures may again become relevant if climatologists' predictions about global warming come true.
The ability to thrive in warm climates could play an important role if global temperatures rise as climate scientists predict, Bloch added.
"This is evidence that ecosystems can develop at temperatures that are expected for the next hundred or two hundred years," he said.
Return of Titanoboa?
However, the climatic changes that led to the Titanoboa took place over millions of years. Scientists are less confident about the effects of sudden temperature changes.
"Biology is surprisingly adaptable. Changes in climate and living conditions on continents are a stimulus for evolution. But what happens very quickly can lead to changes that can hardly be positively evaluated," Bloch said.
During the existence of the Kerrejon rainforests, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 50% higher than the current one.
“The Kerrejon fossils taught us an important lesson: we learned that tropical plants and ecosystems can cope with high temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide. This is another major problem associated with the current trend of global warming,” says Carlos Jaramillo.
"Plants and animals in the tropics may already have the genetic ability to cope with global warming," the researcher said.
Does this mean the giant Titanoboa snake could return?
"As temperatures rise, the chances are that they will come back," says Jaramillo. - It takes a geological time of the order of a million years for the emergence of a new species of animals. But they can come back! "
Based on materialsThe reticulated python is the largest snake living on Earth, it is a real giant of the snake world with a weight of up to 200 kg and an average body length of 5-8, rarely more than 10 meters. But even he pales in comparison with the titanoboa - a monster that lived 58-60 million years ago.
Titanoboa (lat.Titanoboa cerrejonensis) is the largest snake in the entire history of the Earth, the body length of this reptile was 13 meters, according to some estimates - up to 15 m, and the mass was close to 1000 kg.
Titanoboa in natural habitat as seen by the artist.
We learned about the giant snake relatively recently, in 2009, during excavations in a coal mine near the Colombian town of Serrejon. An international team of biologists and paleontologists managed to find in the mine, which was the bottom of a large river millions of years ago, the remains of several previously unknown species of fish and turtles, and a huge fossilized skeleton of a snake. After examining the find in detail, the scientists realized that they had made a sensational discovery.
Titanoboa belonged to the family of false-footed reptiles, which includes modern giants: anacondas and boas. The skeletal structure of Titanoboa cerrejonensis is indeed similar to that of false-legged reptiles, but some experts call this only similarity and insist on introducing the prehistoric snake into a new family.
Titanoboa sculpture by famous Chinese artist Huang Yongping. The proportions are correct.
Interestingly, the titanoboa appeared shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. Probably, it became the largest predator of its time, occupying a niche vacated after the tyrannosaurs and their relatives.
On land, the snake was rather slow and clumsy, and probably did not pose a real threat to animals that could move more or less quickly. Titanoboa posed a much greater danger while in the water. It is not known for certain whether Titanoboa cerrejonensis hunted crocodiles and alligators, but there was no doubt that she could cope with such large and dangerous opponents.
Like modern descendants, the titanoboa was not venomous. The snake dealt with its victims in the same way as anacondas and boas - twisting and squeezing the prey.
Scientific interest in the largest snake is further supported by the fact that a creature of this size simply would not survive in today's climatic conditions. A cold-blooded 13-meter reptile needs a warmer climate with an average annual temperature of 30-34 ° C to support life. Apparently 60 million years ago, just such a warm climate was inherent in the Earth.
Full-length reconstruction of a snake. Body length - 10 meters. Written by Charlie Brinson
Millions of years after the extinction of the dinosaurs, there was a kind of snake, which with its gigantic size alone excites the mind. 60-58 million years ago in the swampy jungle of Colombia lived Titanoboa... A snake like a boa constrictor reached a length of 15 meters and weighed up to a ton.
The size Titanoboa could be attributed to the climate in which he lived. Warmer climates usually imply more vegetation, which means more prey that also outnumbered prey in cooler conditions.
Canadian and American zoologists, having made a comparative analysis of the skeleton, came to the conclusion that the snake could reach 13 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. The largest surviving snake, the reticulated python, reaches 8.7 meters in length. The smallest snake, Leptotyphlops carlae, is only 10 centimeters long.
Vertebrae of Titanoboa and the modern middle snake
This colossal snake looked like a modern common boa constrictor, but acted more like today's anaconda that lives in the Amazon jungle. He was a slippery swamp dweller and a huge predator that could eat any animal he hunted. The diameter of his body was close to the size of the waist of a person of our time.
In the swampy jungle, the life of the titanoboa was surprisingly long due to the constant incessant rain, abundant vegetation and living creatures. Deep rivers allowed the snake to both go deep and crawl around the palm trees and hilly jungle.
The river basin in which the titanoboa fed was crammed with giant tortoises and crocodiles of at least three different species. It was also home to a giant fish, three times the size of the current inhabitants of the Amazon.
On March 22, 2012, a 14-meter reconstruction of a titanoboa skeleton created for the titanoboa popular science program Titanoboa: Monster Snake, produced by the Smithsonian Channel, was unveiled at Grand Central Terminal.
Snakes, like other reptiles, have been on Earth for tens of millions of years, but tracing their evolutionary origins has become a huge challenge for paleontologists. In the next 11 paragraphs of the article, you will find photographs and descriptions of various ancient snakes, ranging from dinilisium to the largest prehistoric snake in the world - titanoboa.
1. Dinlysium
Habitat: woodlands of South America;
Historical period: Late Cretaceous period (90-85 million years ago);
Size and weight: about 1.80-3 m in length and 5-10 kg;
The diet: small animals;
Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; dull skull.
The filmmakers of BBC: Walking with the Dinosaurs were pretty knowledgeable about prehistoric reptiles, so it's unforgivable that the last episode of Death of a Dynasty (1999) depicts a huge mistake involving a dinilysius snake.
This prehistoric snake was shown to be a threat to young Tyrannosaurus rex, despite the fact that: firstly, dinilysia lived 10 million years earlier than Tyrannosaurus Rex, and secondly, this snake was native to South America, while T -Rex lived in North America.
2. Epodophis (Eupodophis descouensi)
Habitat
Historical period
Size and weight: about 1 m in length;
The diet: small animals;
Distinctive characteristics: small size; tiny hind legs.
Epodophis is the classic transitional form between lizards and legless snakes. These Cretaceous reptiles had tiny (about 2 cm) hind legs, with a characteristic femur and tibia. Ironically, Epodophis and two other genera (Haasiophis and Pachirachis) of fossil snakes equipped with vestigial legs were discovered in the Middle East, a clear breeding ground for snakes 100 million years ago.
3. Gigantofis
Habitat: woodlands of North Africa and South Asia;
Historical period: at the end of the Eocene (40-35 million years ago);
Size and weight: up to 10 m in length and up to 500 kg;
The diet: small animals;
Distinctive characteristics: big size; capacious jaws.
Approximately 10 meters long and weighing about half a ton, the prehistoric snake gigantofis, until recently was considered the largest snake that ever lived in the world, until the remains of an ancient Titanoboa snake, much larger (15 m in length and weighing about a ton).
4. Haasiophis
Habitat: woodlands of the Middle East;
Historical period: Late Cretaceous period (100-90 million years ago);
Size and weight: about 1 m in length;
The diet: small marine animals;
Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; tiny hind limbs.
Some paleontologists believe that the haasiophis was related to the older snakes of the pachirachis genus, but much of the evidence (mostly related to the shape of the skull and the structure of the teeth) places these snakes in a separate genus.
Habitat: woodlands of South America, Western Europe, Africa and Madagascar;
Historical period: Late Cretaceous-Pleistocene (90-2 million years ago)
Size and weight: 3-9 m in length and weighing 2-20 kg;
The diet: small animals;
Distinctive characteristics: Moderate to large in size; the structure of the vertebrae.
As you can guess from the unusually wide geographic and temporal range of snakes of the genus madtsoia (the various species of madtsoia span a time span of 90 million years), paleontologists are far from accurate sorting of the evolutionary relationships of these prehistoric snakes.
6. Nayash (Najash rionegrina)
Habitat: woodlands of South America;
Historical period: Late Cretaceous period (90 million years ago);
Size and weight: about 1 m in length;
The diet: small animals;
Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; small hind limbs.
Unlike other genera of basal snakes: epodophis, pachirachis and haasiophis, which spent most of their life in the water, snakes of the Nayash genus led an exclusively terrestrial lifestyle.
7. Pachirachis
Habitat: rivers and lakes of the Middle East;
Historical period: Early Cretaceous period (130-120 million years ago);
Size and weight: up to 1 m in length and weighing about 1 kg;
The diet: a fish;
Distinctive characteristics: long serpentine body; small hind legs.
Pachirachis is the ideal intermediate form between lizards and snakes: these ancient reptiles possessed an exclusively serpentine body, complete with scales, a python-like head and a pair of rudimentary hind limbs located a few centimeters from the end of the tail.
8. Sanaeh (Sanajeh indicus)
Habitat: woodlands of India;
Historical period: Late Cretaceous period (70-65 million years ago);
Size and weight: up to 3.5 m in length and weighing 10-20 kg;
The diet: small dinosaurs;
Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; limited articulation of the jaws.
Sanaeh (Sanajeh indicus) was significantly smaller in size than the world's largest prehistoric snake, but it is the only species that hunted dinosaurs with great confidence (mainly cubs and small dinosaur species up to 50 cm in length).
9. Tetrapodophis
Habitat: woodlands of South America;
Historical period: Early Cretaceous period (120 million years ago);
Size and weight: 30 cm long and weighing several hundred grams;
The diet: insects;
Distinctive characteristics: small size; four vestigial limbs.
The tetrapodophis has a dubious origin - it was allegedly discovered in Brazil, but no one can say for sure where and by whom, as well as how the fossil remains came to Germany. Some paleontologists doubt the tetrapodophis is a true prehistoric snake.
10. Titanoboa
Habitat: woodlands of South America;
Historical period: Paleogene period (60 million years ago);
Size and weight: up to 15 m in length and weighing about 1 ton;
The diet: animals;
Distinctive characteristics: giant size; camouflage color.
Titanoboa is the largest prehistoric snake in the world that has ever lived on our planet. She reached up to 15 m in length and weighed about 1 ton. The only reason why she did not hunt dinosaurs is that the titanoboa appeared several million years after their death. In the article "," you can get acquainted with a lot of interesting information about these giant snakes.
11. Wonambi
Habitat: plains of Australia;
Historical period: the Pleistocene epoch (2 million - 40 thousand years ago);
Size and weight: 5-6 m in length and weighing about 50 kg;
The diet: animals;
Distinctive characteristics: big size; primitive head and jaws.
Although Australian wonambis were not directly related to modern pythons and boas, these snakes had a similar hunting style: clenching their muscle rings around unsuspecting animals and slowly soul them to death.
Speaking of giant reptiles, we most often imagine a boa constrictor or anaconda. Scientists have long assumed that larger animals of this class existed in the prehistoric world. These guesses were scientifically confirmed only in 2009 thanks to an unexpected archaeological find. And now we know for sure that the titanoboa snake is the largest that has ever existed on our planet.
Sensational archaeological find
In 2009, during excavations, fossils of a giant snake were found in the coal mines of Colombia. The remains were in fairly good condition and made it possible to study in detail an animal previously unknown to science. Experts managed to collect and restore a complete
The ancient reptile belongs to the Paleocene era. The giant snake received the name "Titanoboa" (Titanoboa cerrejonensis), which literally translates as "Giant boa constrictor". Scientists suggest that these monsters appeared after about 10 million years, after which it turns out that giant reptiles lived on the territory of modern Colombia about 60 million years ago.
How long is the giant snake?
The fossils found during archaeological excavations make it possible to completely reconstruct the appearance and outstanding dimensions of the ancient monster. Scientists have found that the titanoboa snake reached a length of 15 meters. At the same time, the thickness of the reptile's torso exceeded the waist circumference of the average person. At its thickest point, the snake's body girth could reach 100 centimeters.
Modern boas are direct descendants of titanoboa. Presumably, the ancient monster also wrapped and squeezed its prey in its fatal embrace. But during the meal, the extinct titanoboa snake looked more like a modern anaconda. This reptile could swallow almost any animal and was at the top of the food chain. According to experts, the weight of a well-dined titanoboa could exceed 1 ton.
Like its descendants, the titanoboa snake was not venomous. Due to its size and developed muscles, this reptile easily coped with adult alligators.
The discovery of the fossilized remains of a giant snake gave rise to thinking about the climatic conditions in the animal's habitats. Most scientists agree that the reptile thrived in hot and humid tropical climates. Some experts, on the other hand, believe that the average annual temperature in the study area has risen by several degrees over the past millions of years. They calculated that the giant snake was producing too much metabolic heat when it was digesting food. At excessively high temperatures, the reptile would simply overheat.
Scientists agree only on one thing, that titanoboa is an extinct species of snakes that can hunt in water and on land. Despite its fantastic size, the reptile moved as rapidly as its modern descendants. And this means that the animal, chosen by the snake as a prey, simply did not have a chance.
Titanoboa in art and popular culture
Legends about giant snakes are present in the cultural traditions of many countries of the world. Who knows, maybe our ancestors did sometimes meet with the descendants of titanoboas, surpassing modern boas in size?
The skeleton of a giant ancient snake is exhibited today in the New York Museum, and everyone can see it with their own eyes. At the National Museum of Natural History (Washington), you can contemplate a stunning sculpture. There, in the middle of the showroom, a real-scale titanoboa snake swallows an alligator.
The National Geographic Society has produced a detailed documentary about the giant reptile. Titanoboa also appears in modern art in the form of an ancient creepy monster. For example, this snake can be seen in the second episode of the series "Jurassic Portal: New World".
Do giant snakes exist today?
More recently, the very existence of such a large snake was only a bold hypothesis. But what if animals like titanoboa still live in the least explored corners of our planet? Even reputable researchers put forward such an assumption from time to time. However, to date, it has not been confirmed.
The boa constrictor and the anaconda are still the record holders in the creeping world. The descendants of the legendary titanoboa - modern pythons - are usually up to 10 meters long. Anaconda is considered the heaviest snake, the weight of an individual individual can reach 95 kilograms.
It's not easy to imagine an ancient giant looking at modern snake photos. Titanoboa was longer than a standard passenger bus, and could easily swallow an adult.
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