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gekkogecko
02-05-2009, 10:34 AM
URL: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090204/full/news.2009.80.html

Summary: largest. snake. evar!

More detailed summary: Fossil of a snake estimated at 12.8m in length, weighing 1,135kg dating from the mid-Paleocene, about 58-60mya. For those of you metric-impaired, that amounts to about 42ft in length, and about 1+1/4 short tons in weight. The name is aptly appliled: Titanoboa cerrejonensis, or 'titanic boa from Cerrejon' (Cerrejon, Columbia, where the fossils were found).
Bebi Dempster
02-05-2009, 10:42 AM
GULP!!!
I love snakes but that would be one hell of a HUNGRY PET!!

WOW i know a few Snake breeders who would find this link very interesting! thanks for that.. now i'm going to dream about snakes - and i dont mean the trouser snake.

lol it's an interesting read.. they are using the fossel as a themometor..
jseal
02-05-2009, 01:26 PM
There remains much to be discovered about the past, and the further back they go , the more there is to be discovered.
Lilith
02-05-2009, 07:41 PM
Just glad I'm in the here and now!
Oldfart
02-06-2009, 12:49 AM
As this fossil was dated at 60mya, was the species a survivor of the great extinction or an opportunist filling a niche? We'll probably never know unless they find fossils below the KT divide.
Irezumi Kiss
02-06-2009, 01:28 AM
Hmmm. You know, if I copy this link to that site, the next time I tell a woman if she wants to see a "big black snake," the joke's on her if she accuses me of being uncouth! :)
Fangtasia
02-06-2009, 03:57 AM
That is one BIG snake, and one i hope never to come face to face with *L*
dicksbro
02-06-2009, 05:29 AM
It probably ate mosquitos. :)
gekkogecko
02-06-2009, 04:59 PM
As this fossil was dated at 60mya, was the species a survivor of the great extinction or an opportunist filling a niche?

The K/T boundry is put at 65 mya: so, this would have popped up about 5-7 million years later. Definitely not a crossover. There's some speculation that the presence of large theropods during the Cretaceous would have kept something like this from evolving; exclusionary niche, and all that.
Oldfart
02-06-2009, 08:43 PM
Not necessarily GG. If it lived in a tropical environment, anaconda style, it would be more a competitor of the croc than the theropod.