Titanoboa Real or Fake? What's the Size of the World's Biggest Extinct Snake From 66 Million Years Ago?

Years ago, Titanoboa already made headlines as the largest snake that ever lived.

Scientists have since believed that this species of snake grew to up to 50 feet long and three feet wide, making it as the top predator found in the tropical rainforest.

(Photo : Getty Images/Michael Loccisano)

The Florida Museum said that Titanoboa was the largest known predator on the planet that possibly existed between the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago and the first appearance of Megalodon 23 million years ago.

Museum scientists said this snake could have weighed more than a ton.

According to Jonathan Bloch, curator of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Florida Museum of Natural History, fossils of Titanoboa cerrjonensis were unearthed in a coal mine in northern Colombia at a tropical South America.

Bloch said that the age of the rocks that were discovered was about 58 million years old.

Due to this discovery, it was shown that the coal mine was able to preserve the ancient remnants of the tropical rainforest, adding that this was the oldest evidence for a rainforest that the museum scientists had from South America.

At present, Titanaboa has been making rounds over social media platform Tiktok. Videos online have been educating the present generation about the largest snake that had existed. 

 @animalscratch The Largest Snake that ever lived #snake #dinosaur #facts #interesting #animals #fyp ♬ original sound - AnimalScratch  

@lindsaynikole 6/31 they could easily turn you into a charcuterie board #titanoboa #extinctanimals #spooky #learnontiktok ♬ Heretic - Oli XL  

 @theinfographicsshow We’re glad we weren’t around for the Titanoboa #snakes #huge #animal #animalfacts #facts #fyp ♬ Paradise - TELL YOUR STORY music by Ikson™  

Titanoboa Real Life

Bloch said that Titanoboa could be related to other types of snakes such as anacondas and boas.

The curator further said that researchers had thought before why the Titanoboa could not get any larger and they found a correlation with the hot temperature in South America.

"And this is important for cold-blooded vertebrates like Titanoboa because they derive their body temperature from the ambient temperature - the temperature in their environment - as opposed to deriving their temperature from the food that they eat like a warm-blooded animals does," Bloch said.

Earlier studies have found that cold-blooded reptiles could not get beyond a certain body mass without their metabolism slowing down, meaning that they would not be able to eat at a specific temperature.

"So we think that Titanoboa became as large as it did because temperatures were maybe even as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are today" the curator explained.

In 2009, scientists described that Titanoboa was way larger compared to the previous record holder for largest ever snake, the Gigantophis, by a comfortable margin.

Experts said that the largest snake by body weight is the Green Anaconda or the Eunectes murinus, which is credited as attaining a length of just over six and a half meters long.

Meanwhile, the largest snake, measured by body length, is the reticulated python (Python reticulatus) that is approaching seven meters long for the largest individuals.

Initial studies said that there had been eye witness claims, especially dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, stating that larger anacondas and pythons could have been bigger than Titanoboa.

However, scientists said that there is no proof of these monster snakes, and even many more modern estimates have since been proven to be invalid.

Read Also: The Largest King Cobra in the World Measured an Astounding 18 Feet!

What do they eat

Titanoboa usually prey on other animals, including crocodiles, such as Cerrejonisuchus, Acherontisuchus, and Anthracosuchus.

They were also found to have hunt on turtles and even large fish.

Scientists also said that this type of snake could be involved in cannibalism. This as snakes in the wild are known to eat other snakes, including those of their own species.

Meanwhile, Titanoboa had probably spent much of its time residing in the waters. The sedimentary structure of the region's rocks and the preservation of water-loving organisms indicate that the region was waterlogged.

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