Bandung – Dinosaurs are said to be a species of giant reptile that once ruled the Earth millions of years ago. It turns out, apart from dinosaurs, there are giant snakes which also play a role at the top of the food chain.
Quoted from detikInet, the giant snake was named Titanoboa cerrejonensis. This animal lived in the Paleocene era around 66-56 million years ago. This giant snake filled the niche left by the extinction of the dinosaurs, becoming an apex predator in the tropical forests of South America where it lived.
In northern Colombia, in the region known as Cerrejón, one of the world’s most abundant fossil deposits in a mine, many bones of this mighty snake were discovered. The researchers compared the two best-preserved vertebrates with modern snake species and estimated their sizes.
Estimated to be around 12.8 to 14.3 meters long and weighing more than a ton, this giant snake lives in dense forests and swamps. Titanoboa likely terrorized all other animals in its vicinity at that time.
“Cerrejón is the best, and perhaps the only, complete window on ancient tropical ecosystems anywhere in the world,” said Carlos Jaramillo, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, quoted in Smithsonian Magazine.
These fossils reveal that Titanoboa was a member of the Boidae family. They were probably a non-venomous species and not very different from modern boas.
However, instead of using its giant body to crush its prey to death or kill them after they went limp, Titanoboa would have become an ambush predator, consuming its prey with its enormous jaws.
Its prey was most likely a giant turtle or a crocodile-like species, as fossils were also found in the mine.
Given their enormous size, researchers suggest that tropical regions require an average temperature of at least 30-34°C to support the metabolism of these giant creatures.
In this way, these fossils not only shed light on Titanoboa itself, but also the environment in which it once reigned.
This article was published on detikInet with the title The 14 meter Titanoboa is the largest snake to ever crawl the earth
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2023-10-27 22:00:00
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