HORROR FROM THE PAST

a lot of people are terrified by snakes

this is a serious issue that even has a

scientific term

herpetophobia many people cannot stand

the image of a snake and get severely

traumatized when meeting even a harmless

snake in the forest

it's hard to imagine what a person with

such a phobia could feel when seeing a

huge snake that can swallow a crocodile

hole

and this is not a fairy tale character

or a sketch from a horror movie

this monster really lived on our planet

scientists discovered its remains quite

recently in 2009

or maybe it still lives somewhere

meet the Titanoboa the largest and most

terrible snake of all time now you'll

get the answers to all your questions

how huge was it compared to the

dinosaurs how strong was it who could it

kill why might titanoboa reappear and

many other interesting facts

foreign

these were quite routine excavations

conducted during the expedition of an

international research group the group

was led by Jonathan block a vertebrate

paleontologist at the University of

Florida and Carlos Jaramillo a

paleobotanist at the Smithsonian

tropical Research Institute in Panama

were working in the Amazon basin namely

in the coal mines of the serohon

formation in laguajira Colombia

suddenly scientists stumbled upon

something extremely unusual that made

quite a stir in the scientific world

the remains of ancient snakes the size

that we had never imagined before

according to preliminary calculations it

turned out that these snakes were up to

14 meters 46 feet or even more and

weighed at least a ton

huge snakes lived in the era of the

middle and late paleocene from about 60

to 58 million years ago in fact right

after all non-avian dinosaurs went

extinct and this was no exception to the

rule in total fossils of as many as 30

individuals were discovered and not only

vertebrae but even three whole skulls so

there is no doubt the pantheon of

ancient giant monsters now has another

terrible specimen

at first glance it might seem that the

14 meter

45.93 feet size is nothing special well

it's not a mile moreover it's only 3

meters 9.8 feet longer than the largest

giant anaconda ever recorded which is

11.43 meters or 37.5 feet long

but this is just at first glance even if

you think about it without a visual

illustration the tank cannaboa is a

third larger than the giant anaconda and

if you look at a visual representation

and compare it with a person it becomes

a little uncomfortable

are you ready here is a sketchy and

rather Bland infographic

here's a titanoboa from above it's

already quite impressive how small the

human figure looks

but enthusiasts have taken the trouble

to recreate a full-sized titanoboa in

all its glory and dimensions one of the

most famous reconstructions is at the

Smithsonian institution exhibition

here it is

as you can see nothing special just a

huge snake eating a crocodile

and this is not an artist's fantasy

researchers have found plenty of

fossilized skeleton parts in the Amazon

basin at and they are amazing the only

thing is we can't say anything for sure

about the color most likely titanoboa

had camouflage coloring like in the

modern python a dark green shade of

scales and dark annular spots throughout

the body but there's no need to guess

about the sizes here is another

comparison left titanoboa vertebrae

what's on the right what do you think a

vertebrae of a grass snake or a common

viper well far from it this is the

vertebrae of an anaconda the largest

living snake although dinosaurs were

already extinct by that time it would be

interesting to imagine how the Titanoboa

would co-exist with other gigantic

reptiles let's take one of the most

recognizable and also the largest

Dinosaurs the Diplodocus

According to some estimates these

monsters reached an average of 27 meters

and up to 35 meters

88.58 to

114.83 feet from the tip of the muzzle

to the tip of the tail that is as we can

see the titanoboa's length barely

reached half of the average Diplodocus

however their weight differed

dramatically based on various estimates

Diplodocus weighed from 20 to 80 tons

with a mass of up to one ton titanoboa

certainly could not compete with such a

monster to the Diplodocus the Titanoboa

was nothing more than a pipsqueak

scurrying around and always getting in

the way

although in all fairness we should

mention that the snake was still very

formidable and probably reached a meter

at its thickest at most Diplodocus

probably could stumble on it for smaller

animals on the other hand titanoboa

would certainly mean trouble if they had

the great Misfortune to meet one looking

at the Reconstruction it seems that this

monster could swallow not only a

crocodile but a whole Rhino

but was it really so

at first scientists were sure that the

Titanoboa was the top predator and a

quite ferocious and surreptitious one

just like pythons it could have stalked

its prey caught them off guard put them

in a deadly Embrace strangled and then

swallowed them whole indeed physically a

titanoboa was probably strong enough to

break all the bones and strangle a

horse-sized animal according to various

estimates the contraction force of this

snake's Embrace could be as high as 30

kilograms per square centimeter 400 PSI

pound per square inch in all seriousness

it was believed that the Titanoboa had

crocodile morphs for lunch

still the scientific Community wasn't

fully unanimous on this David Paulie a

professor at Indiana University believed

that among other things this huge snake

ate fish

as further studies showed the

conclusions about the crocodile eating

titanoboa were far from the truth in

fact the Titanoboa was more like a blue

whale or a whale shark having a huge

size it ate every little thing mostly

fish

how did we come to this conclusion it

was none other but one of the

discoverers of the Titanoboa Jonathan

block however he thought so from the

very beginning

in 2013 block and colleagues published a

new paper reporting the findings of

titanoboa skulls thanks to them

researchers could clarify the structural

features of the snake's head and hence

its diet

it turned out that the Titanoboa had

many Palatine and lateral teeth also

they weren't very durable this means

that titanoboa mostly ate relatively

small animals that couldn't fight it off

but at the same time they were slippery

and Nimble and prone to escape

similar structural features were found

in modern higher snakes that mainly eat

fish based on this the scientists

concluded that the most terrible snake

of all time was in fact a professional

angler relatively slow and clumsy on the

ground but quite Nimble in the water

in a thriving natural environment the

Titanoboa was unlikely to have problems

with food sources with its formidable

size and strength the snake itself

definitely wasn't anyone's immediate

prey but it may well have had natural

enemies for example the giant tortoise

carbonemies this is suggested by the

fact that the remains of these Turtles

are often found in swamps and lakes

alongside the remains of titanoboas

their shell was 1.7 meters long

they certainly didn't hunt each other

but they probably fought for food from

time to time because carbonemies ate the

same fish and even hunted the same way

using a disguise

in such fights the Titanoboa was much

less likely to win despite being

significantly larger titanoboa could

hardly overcome the tortoise's powerful

shell and crushing Jaws

but no matter how formidable competitors

the carbonemis were if the Titanoboa

survived to this day it would have to

face a truly ferocious cruel and

Invincible enemy us

needless to say these giant snakes would

be highly valued by luxury goods

manufacturers snakeskin products are

still incredibly expensive and are in

demand among the sophisticated public

most likely if the Titanoboa managed to

survive to this day and avoid being

killed off it would be under the

strictest International protection and

due to its extreme vulnerability it

would be an exceptionally rare species

on the verge of Extinction

on the other hand the habitat itself

would be quite favorable because the

Titanoboa wouldn't intersect too much

with people with all its large and small

bodies of water the Amazon basin is one

of the most inaccessible places on the

planet until now more and more new

animal species are being discovered

there which we couldn't even imagine

before

so maybe the Titanoboa still exists we

just haven't found it

unfortunately no such a large biological

species would undoubtedly leave some

traces and over so many years of

observing the area we would have found

at least the indirect signs but we only

find fossilized remains that are tens of

millions of years old

but no one says such monsters wouldn't

appear in the future are you saying it's

impossible well it would certainly seem

so why on Earth would they reappear but

in fact this is where it gets

interesting to understand why such

monsters might appear in the future we

need to look into the past specifically

at the conditions that made their

emergence possible

to begin with let's remember that Giants

were thriving in those days from giant

ferns to Giant dragonflies not to

mention very diverse dinosaur species of

course we have huge whales elephants and

Sequoias now but let's be honest there

are very very few real giants this is

not even close to the number of

monstrous Giants who roamed the Earth

for millions of years

but why was it so and where did they all

go

for the most part the gigantism of

certain species was caused by different

factors but as for reptiles they have a

very specific feature most of them are

cold-blooded or poikilothermic this term

denotes animals with an unstable body

temperature that changes based on the

temperature of the external environment

as warm-blooded creatures, we can

maintain our standard 36.6 degrees

Celsius

97.88 degrees Fahrenheit from within

snakes on the other hand need the

environment to provide such a

temperature that's why reptiles love to

bask in the Sun so much they need heat

like air

so the remains of the largest snake in

the history of Earth suggests the

incredibly hot tropical climate 60

million years ago at an average

temperature below 30 degrees Celsius 86

degrees Fahrenheit a python with the

weight of a polar bear and the length of

a gray whale couldn't survive and

moreover reach such a size

titanoboa has become another argument

for scientists improving an important

fact 58 to 60 million years ago the

average annual temperature in the

tropics was probably 30 to 34 degrees

Celsius 86 to 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit

why is that the enzymes involved in the

metabolism of almost every terrestrial

organism work best at temperatures

between 35 and 40 degrees celsius 95 to

104 degrees Fahrenheit naturally the

body often spends some extra energy on

warming up this means that the size of

the cold-blooded creatures correlates

with the average annual temperature

if we assume that titanoboa's metabolism

was similar to that of modern snakes

then it needed an average annual

temperature of 30 to 34 degrees Celsius

86 to 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit which is 6

to 10 degrees higher than we previously

thought

what is the current situation with the

climate in recent decades that's right

global warming we don't mean to scare

anyone but with the existing Dynamics

there may well arise conditions

conducive to the emergence of monsters

like the Titanoboa in the future

of course being close to human

civilization with all its harmful

effects on nature would hardly help the

Amazon jungle bring a new incarnation of

the Titanoboa into existence but still

according to many

paleoclimatologists the planet will

witness very interesting speciation in

the future