The largest extinct snake in the world. A huge ancient snake may reappear on earth. Sensational archaeological find

Titanoboa is a prehistoric giant snake, about the size of an elongated school bus. With a mass of about 1 ton and a length of up to 15 meters, these were real monsters among snakes that have ever lived on Earth. In this article, you will discover 10 unique facts about the largest snake species on the planet from the Paleocene era.

1 Titanoboa appeared 5 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs

After the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, it took millions of years for life to return to Earth. Introduced during the Paleocene era, the titanoboa (along with prehistoric tortoises and crocodiles) was one of the first giant reptiles to regain ecological niches vacant after the death of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, pterosaurs and marine reptiles.

2. Titanoboa was a boa constrictor, but hunted like a crocodile

It can be assumed that this giant prehistoric monster hunted like a modern boa constrictor, wrapping itself around the victim and squeezing it until it suffocated. In fact, the titanoboa attacked its prey in a more dramatic manner. It was partially submerged in water, and then, when the victim was in range, the giant snake with a sudden throw, grabbed the unfortunate prey with its massive jaws around the trachea.

3. Before the discovery of the remains of the titanoboa, the king of snakes was Gigantophis

Until recently, the 10 meter Gigantophis was considered the largest snake ever to have lived on Earth, until its reputation was overshadowed by the Titanoboa, which appeared several million years earlier. But still, Gigantophis was no less dangerous for prey than its much larger predecessor. Paleontologists believe that this African snake preyed on the distant ancestor of the elephant - meriteria.

4 Titanoboa Was Twice As Long As Anaconda

If we compare the titanoboa with the modern giant snake - the anaconda, then the prehistoric monster was 2 times longer and four times heavier than its contemporary. The maximum length of the anaconda is about 7 m, and the weight is slightly more than 200 kg. Compared to most modern snakes, the titanoboa was a real "behemoth": for example, the average cobra weighs only about 5 kg, and can easily fit into a small suitcase.

5. The thickest part of the Titanoboa's body was up to 1 meter in diameter.

Given the length and mass of a prehistoric snake, the laws of physics and biology could not allow an even distribution of weight along the entire length of the animal's body. Titanoboa was noticeably thicker towards the center of the body (up to 1 m), which provided sufficient capacity for large prey living in those days.

6 Titanoboa Shared Habitat With Giant Tortoise

The early Paleocene swamps of South America are not ideal for the faint of heart time travelers. Remains of monotonous turtles carbonemys were found in the same area as the titanoboa fossils. It is possible that these two giant reptiles accidentally crossed paths from time to time.

7 Titanoboa Lived In A Hot And Humid Climate

South America quickly recovered from global climate change as a result of an asteroid impact on the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, which threw up dust clouds that covered the sun. During the Paleocene epoch, present-day Peru and Colombia had a tropical climate with high humidity and average air temperatures ideal for cold-blooded reptiles like the titanoboa.

8. The color of the titanoboa looked like a dirty car mat.

Unlike some modern venomous snakes, the bright coloration would have been of no use to a prehistoric snake. In fact, the titanoboa had an unremarkable coloration that helped the giant snake blend in with its surroundings. If you were miraculously transported to Paleocene South America, chances are the titanoboa bit you in half before you realized it wasn't seaweed.

9. A life-size model of a titanoboa can be seen at Grand Central Station in New York

In March 2012, the Smithsonian Institution installed a 14 meter titanoboa model in the world's largest and busiest train station, Grand Central Station in New York, USA.

10. Despite its size, the titanoboa was a "shrimp" compared to most dinosaurs.

You may be wondering: why all the fuss about a giant prehistoric snake, the mass of which reached only 1 ton, when some types of dinosaurs weighed a hundred times more? Perhaps the fear of many peoples of snakes seems irrational, but meeting a huge snake that attacks like a crocodile (even considering the fact of its diminutiveness relative to dinosaurs) would not be the most pleasant event in your life.

The reticulated python is the largest snake currently 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 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 very close to 1000 kg.

Titanoboa in its natural habitat as imagined by an 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 discover in a mine that was the bottom of a large river millions of years ago the remains of several previously unknown species of fish and turtles, and the fossilized skeleton of a huge snake. After examining the find in detail, the scientists realized that they had made a sensational discovery.

Titanoboa belonged to the family of pseudo-legged reptiles, which includes modern giants: anacondas and boas. The structure of the skeleton of Titanoboa cerrejonensis is indeed similar to that of pseudo-legged reptiles, but some experts call this only a similarity and insist on placing the prehistoric snake in a new family.

Titanoboa sculpture by famous Chinese artist Huang Yongping. The proportions are respected.

Interestingly, the titanoboa appeared shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. She probably became the largest predator of her time, occupying a niche vacated after 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. The titanoboa posed a much greater danger while in the water. It is not known for certain whether Titanoboa cerrejonensis hunted crocodiles and alligators, but she could undoubtedly cope with such large and dangerous opponents.

Like modern descendants, the titanoboa was not poisonous. The snake dealt with its victims in the same way as anacondas and boas, wrapping around and squeezing prey.

Scientific interest in the largest snake is also reinforced by the fact that a creature of this size simply would not survive in modern climatic conditions. To maintain the life of a cold-blooded 13-meter reptile, a warmer climate with an average annual temperature of 30-34 ° C is needed. Apparently, 60 million years ago, just such a warm climate was inherent in the Earth.

Reconstruction of a snake in full growth. Body length - 10 meters. Written by Charlie Brinson

The largest snake in the history of the Earth, the titanoboa is a terrible South American monster that appeared a little later than the era of dinosaurs.

In the last decade, scientists working in open-pit coal mines have discovered the remains of a monster that can terrify even the most daredevils, except perhaps for passionate fans of reptiles. The monster named Titanoboa cerrejonensis- a giant relative of modern boas. The length of the titanoboa reached 15 meters, and the approximate weight, according to scientists, could be 1135 kg.

For comparison: the largest snake that has survived to our time, the reticulated python, grows up to 8.8 m, and the heaviest giant anaconda weighs no more than 100 kg. In addition, the body girth of the titanoboa reached 90 cm: this snake was not only the longest and heaviest, but also the thickest! In size, the ancient reptile overshadows any of its modern relatives.

The Titanoboa was a product of what is known as the greenhouse period, when the Earth's temperature soared shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The peak of the greenhouse period occurred approximately 58-60 million years ago, in the middle of the Paleocene. If titanoboa were cold-blooded animals, like modern snakes, then, according to scientists, they could live in conditions where the average annual temperature did not fall below 30-34 ° C. However, some experts believe that the huge mass helped the titanoboa retain heat, so such a monster was able to survive at lower temperatures.

Like its modern counterparts, this huge snake could go without food for quite some time, but when it ate, it ate A LOT! The monster squeezed its prey ten times harder than a boa constrictor, and thanks to its wide-opening jaws, it could swallow the “lunch” whole...

According to one hypothesis, this terrible predator hunted large crocodiles that lived among marshes and swamps.

a brief description of

Title: Titanoboa.
Latin name: Titanoboa cerrejonensis.
Period: 58-60 million years ago.
Family: False-legged (boa constrictors).
Size: Length - up to 15 meters, body girth - 90 centimeters.
Habitat: Tropical swamp forests.
Places of finds: Coal mines of Sorrejon (Colombia).

Snakes, like other reptiles, have lived on Earth for tens of millions of years, but tracing their evolutionary origins has become a huge challenge for paleontologists. In the following 11 paragraphs of the article, you will find photographs and descriptions of various ancient snakes, ranging from dinylysium to the largest prehistoric snake in the world - the titanoboa.

1. Dinilisia

Habitat: woodlands of South America;

historical period: late Cretaceous period (90-85 million years ago);

Size and weight: about 1.80-3m long and 5-10kg;

diet: small animals;

Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; dull skull.

The makers of BBC: Walking with Dinosaurs were pretty knowledgeable about prehistoric reptiles, so it's unforgivable that the last episode of Death of a Dynasty (1999) featured a huge bug involving the dinylysia snake.

This prehistoric snake has been shown to be a threat to young tyrannosaurs, despite the fact that: firstly, dinylysia 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 1m in length;

diet: small animals;

Distinctive characteristics: small size; tiny hind legs.

Epodophis is a classic transitional form between lizards and legless snakes. These Cretaceous reptiles had tiny (about 2 cm) hind legs, with a distinctive femur and tibia. Ironically, the epodophis and two other genera (chaasiophis and pachyrahis) of fossil snakes equipped with rudimentary legs were discovered in the Near East, a clear breeding ground for snakes, 100 million years ago.

3. Gigantophis

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;

diet: small animals;

Distinctive characteristics: big size; capacious jaws.

Approximately 10 meters long and weighing about half a ton, the prehistoric Gigantophis snake was until recently considered the largest snake ever living in the world, until the remains of the ancient titanoboa snake, much larger (15 m in length and weighing about a ton).

4. Haasiofis

Habitat: woodlands of the Middle East;

historical period: late Cretaceous period (100-90 million years ago);

Size and weight: about 1m in length;

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 genus Pachyrachis, but most of the evidence (mainly related to the shape of the skull and 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 Ma)

Size and weight: 3-9 m in length and weighing 2-20 kg;

diet: small animals;

Distinctive characteristics: moderate to large size; the structure of the vertebrae.

As you can guess from the unusually wide geographic and temporal range of snakes in the genus madtsoia (various species of madtsoia span a span of 90 million years), paleontologists are far from sorting out the evolutionary relationships of these prehistoric snakes.

6. Nyash (Najash rionegrina)

Habitat: woodlands of South America;

historical period: Late Cretaceous (90 million years ago);

Size and weight: about 1m in length;

diet: small animals;

Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; small hind limbs.

Unlike other genera of basal snakes: epodophis, pachyrahis and haasiophis, which spent most of their lives in the water, snakes of the genus Nayash led an exclusively terrestrial lifestyle.

7. Pachyrahis

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;

diet: fish;

Distinctive characteristics: long serpentine body; small hind legs.

Pachyrahis is an 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 vestigial hind limbs located a few centimeters from the end of the tail.

8. Sanayeh (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;

diet: small dinosaurs;

Distinctive characteristics: moderate size; limited articulation of the jaws.

Sanaeh (Sanajeh indicus) significantly inferior in size to the world's largest prehistoric snake, but this 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 (120 million years ago);

Size and weight: 30 cm long and weighing several hundred grams;

diet: insects;

Distinctive characteristics: small size; four vestigial limbs.

Tetrapodophis has a dubious origin - it was allegedly discovered in Brazil, but no one can say exactly where and by whom, as well as how the fossils got to Germany. Some paleontologists doubt that tetrapodophis is a real 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 t;

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: Pleistocene epoch (2 million - 40 thousand years ago);

Size and weight: 5-6 m in length and weighing about 50 kg;

diet: animals;

Distinctive characteristics: big size; primitive head and jaws.

Although the Australian wonambi were not directly related to modern pythons and boas, these snakes had a similar hunting style: squeezing their muscular coils around unsuspecting animals and slowly choking them to death.

As we well know, several tens of millions of years ago, the planet Earth, which we humans today consider exclusively ours, belonged to no mammals or even warm-blooded ones. It was inhabited by gigantic creatures in every way - dinosaurs alone are worth something! After the total extinction of dinosaurs (only birds survived, their distant relatives), no less huge creatures began to rule the Earth, which was facilitated by a warm climate and an abundance of food - giant reptiles. And among them was a snake of terrifying size and strength - a colossal boa constrictor, named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by the scientists who discovered it.

The largest snake in the history of the Earth

The remains of a group of eight giant boas were discovered in Colombia while developing a side road of a coal mine near the city of Serrejon in the province of Guajira. At the invitation of the Colombian government, international paleontologists were invited to the site in early 2009, led by Jonathan Bloch and paleobotanist Carlos Jaramillo from the Panamanian branch of the Smithsonian University.

The first thing that shocked paleontologists was the monstrous size of the vertebrae found in the remains of snakes. It was a completely new species of giant boa fossil whose size was so impressive that there was nothing to compare it to. According to preliminary estimates, the colossal boa constrictor that lived in South America was at least 13 meters long, the body weight of an adult was more than a ton!

The family of giant boas inhabited the Earth in the Paleocene, about 60 million years ago. And this fact refutes the theory that during the Paleocene the Earth's climate was cold, because at its beginning there was a complete extinction of dinosaurs - cold-blooded snakes of the genus Titanoboa cerrejonensis were guaranteed not to be able to survive at temperatures below 30 °C. And since they survived and reached such an impressive size, then in the Paleocene era in the equatorial zone of our planet it was warm and even hot. It took about three years to study in detail the fossil remains of snakes found in Columbia, and on March 22, 2012, a life-size model of a colossal boa constrictor was exhibited in the lobby of Grand Central Station in New York, now it is in the Museum of the Smithsonian University in Washington.

According to paleontologists, based on the size of bones and other fossilized remains of the colossus boa constrictor, the length of a living individual was over 15 meters, weight - about 1,500 kg. The body of the largest snake in the history of the Earth possessed the greatest power, developing a squeezing force of 30 kg per square centimeter of the victim's body. Since the numbers expressing the strength of a colossal boa constrictor are not very indicative, imagine that a mass equal to 30,000 tons fell on you - three Eiffel Towers at a time! Yes, the colossal fossil boa constrictor from the Paleocene and the silushka was truly colossal ...

Colossal boa constrictor (model) at lunch

What did this overgrown leather cord feed on? According to American scientists, the food of a reptile of monstrous size was in line with its physical capabilities - the largest snake on Earth ate ... 10-meter crocodiles, small ancestors of elephants and hippos, which abundantly inhabited swamps and lakes in the stuffy climate of the Paleocene! To make it easier for a colossal boa constrictor to swallow prey of non-weak sizes, the bones in its skull were not interconnected, as in modern boas and anacondas - the flexible tissues connecting them easily stretched, allowing swallowing whole, for example, a medium-sized elephant.

I present to your attention a short video in which experts from the Smithsonian University recreated the fight between a tyrannosaurus rex and a colossal boa constrictor, as if these monsters accidentally met nose to nose. Although this is impossible, because dinosaurs died out 10 million years before the appearance of the first reptiles of the genus Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the fight is still spectacular!