Titanoboa

You may have read about this in the news. The world's largest snake has been discovered in the hinterlands of Columbia. It is a boa, Titanoboa cerrejonensis, that reaches 42 feet in length, and weighs in at well over a ton. The one saving grace in this whole story: the snake has been extinct for eons.

The snake is so large, that given our understanding of how snakes regulate their body temperature, it would have required a much hotter tropical environment than we find on the earth today...

The finding calls into question the idea that the climate system has a 'thermostat' that regulates tropical temperatures.

But I'll leave that debate to those who are smarter and more educated than me (an easy feat to accomplish). Let's get back to it's size. It's about the length of your typical city bus, and in terms of girth, if it slithered past you, it would brush against your hip. They most likely preyed on crocodiles, deer, and fleshy, out-of-shape bloggers.

Thanks for the article, Jennifer and Rebecca.

Credit: Jason Bourque, University of Florida














Rebecca pointed out that this picture is well done, but too idyllic -- happy snake in a happy park. When she saw the show about this find, the scientist said that if this snake and a T. Rex faced off, he'd put his money on the snake. We need a scarier image. Anyone care to doctor it up, or conjure a new one?