The biggest snake yet discovered, Titanoboa cerrejones, slithers alongside one of its presumed prey, a primitive crocodile, 60 million years ago in an artist's conception. (View a prehistoric time line.)
At least 42 feet (13 meters) long and weighing 2,500 pounds (1,135 kilograms), the snake was "longer than a city bus ... and heavier than a car," said University of Toronto Mississauga biologist Jason Head, who announced the find today. he biggest snake yet discovered, Titanoboa cerrejones, slithers alongside one of its presumed prey, a primitive crocodile, 60 million years ago in an artist's conception. (View a prehistoric time line.)
At least 42 feet (13 meters) long and weighing 2,500 pounds (1,135 kilograms), the snake was "longer than a city bus ... and heavier than a car," said University of Toronto Mississauga biologist Jason Head, who announced the find today.
In an undated photo, an Indonesian family holds their pet reticulated python--probably the longest living snake species at a maximum of more than 30 feet (9 meters).
By contrast, Titanoboa cerrejonesis measured at least 42 feet (13 meters), according to a February 2009 study. The newfound, 60-million-year-old snake species' giant size was driven by the warmer temperatures of its era.
So could Titanoboa-size snakes return with global warming? "Maybe," study co-author Jonathan Bloch said. "They definitely could, or maybe ... the warming could happen so rapidly that [snakes] wouldn't have time to adapt."
