Titanoboa, , meaning "titanic
boaBoa is a genus of non-venomous boas found in Mexico, Central and South America, Madagascar and on Reunion Island. Four species are currently recognized.The largest member of this group, B...
", is a
genusIn biology, a genus is a taxonomic unit used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The term comes from Latin genus "descent, family, type, gender" , cognate with – genos, "race, stock, kin" ..In addition, genus is a taxonomic rank in the hierarchy In biology, a genus (plural:...
of
snakeSnakes are elongate legless carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
that lived approximately 60 to 58 million years ago, in the
PaleoceneThe Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from 65.5 ± 0.3 Ma to 55.8 ± 0.2 Ma . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic era...
epochIn the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured...
, a 10-million-year period immediately following the dinosaur extinction event. The only known species is the
Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the largest snake ever discovered, supplanting the previous record holder,
Gigantophis.
By comparing the sizes and shapes of its
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record...
ized
vertebraA vertebra is an individual bone in the flexible column that defines vertebrate animals, e.g. humans. The vertebral column encases and protects the spinal cord, which runs from the base of the cranium down the dorsal side of the animal until reaching the pelvis. From there, vertebra continue into...
e to those of extant snakes, researchers estimated that the
T.
Titanoboa, , meaning "titanic
boaBoa is a genus of non-venomous boas found in Mexico, Central and South America, Madagascar and on Reunion Island. Four species are currently recognized.The largest member of this group, B...
", is a
genusIn biology, a genus is a taxonomic unit used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The term comes from Latin genus "descent, family, type, gender" , cognate with – genos, "race, stock, kin" ..In addition, genus is a taxonomic rank in the hierarchy In biology, a genus (plural:...
of
snakeSnakes are elongate legless carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
that lived approximately 60 to 58 million years ago, in the
PaleoceneThe Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from 65.5 ± 0.3 Ma to 55.8 ± 0.2 Ma . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic era...
epochIn the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured...
, a 10-million-year period immediately following the dinosaur extinction event. The only known species is the
Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the largest snake ever discovered, supplanting the previous record holder,
Gigantophis.
Size
By comparing the sizes and shapes of its
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record...
ized
vertebraA vertebra is an individual bone in the flexible column that defines vertebrate animals, e.g. humans. The vertebral column encases and protects the spinal cord, which runs from the base of the cranium down the dorsal side of the animal until reaching the pelvis. From there, vertebra continue into...
e to those of extant snakes, researchers estimated that the
T. cerrejonensis reached a maximum length of , weighed about , and measured about in
diameterIn geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...
at the thickest part of the body.
Comparison with living snakes
The largest eight of the 28
T. cerrejonensis snakes found were between in length. In comparison, the largest extant snakes are the
Python reticulatus, which measures about long, and the anaconda, which measures about long and is considered the heaviest snake on Earth. At the other end of the scale, the smallest extant snake is
Leptotyphlops carlaeBarbados Threadsnake is a species of blind threadsnake. It is the smallest snake species currently known to exist. This member of the Leptotyphlopidae family is found on the Caribbean island of Barbados....
with a length of about .
Location
In 2009, the
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record...
s of 28 individual
T. cerrejonensis were announced to have been found in the
coal minesCoal mining is the extraction or removal of coal from the earth by mining. When coal is used for fuel in power generation it is referred to as steaming or thermal coal. Coal that is used to create coke for steel manufacturing is referred to as coking or metallurgical coal...
of
CerrejónCerrejón is a coal mine located in the Guajira department in the north of Colombia. It is the largest mining operation in Colombia and among the largest open-pit coal mines in the world...
in
La GuajiraLa Guajira is a department of Colombia. It occupies most of its namesake peninsula, the Guajira Peninsula in the northeast region of the country, facing the Caribbean Sea and Venezuela in the northern most part of South America...
,
ColombiaColombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean...
. Prior to this discovery, few fossils of Paleocene-epoch
vertebrateVertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with backbones or spinal columns. About 58,000 species of vertebrates have been described. Vertebrata is the largest subphylum of chordates, and contains many familiar groups of large land animals. Vertebrates comprise cyclostomes, bony...
s had been found in ancient tropical environments of
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
.
The snake was discovered on an expedition by a team of international scientists led by Jonathan Bloch, a
University of FloridaThe University of Florida is a public land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant major research university located on a campus located in Gainesville, Florida, in the United States. The university traces its origins to 1853, and has continuously operated on its present Gainesville campus since the fall...
vertebrate paleontologist, and Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobotanist from the
Smithsonian Tropical Research InstituteThe Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the only bureau of the Smithsonian Institution based outside of the United States, is dedicated to understanding biological diversity. What began in 1923 as small field station on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal Zone has developed...
in
PanamaPanama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of both Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the...
.
Climate
Because snakes are
ectothermEctothermic, from the Greek ectos, "outside" and therme, "heat," refers to organisms that control body temperature through external means. As a result, organisms are dependent on environmental heat sources and have relatively low metabolic rates. For example, many reptiles regulate their body...
ic, the discovery implies that the
tropicsThe tropics,the tropics are very hot. hi everyone! peace out!seated in the equatorial regions of the world, are limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately 23°26' N latitude and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23°26' S latitude...
, the creature's habitat, must have been warmer than previously thought, averaging approximately . The warmer climate of the Earth during the time of
T. cerrejonensis allowed cold-blooded snakes to attain much larger sizes than modern snakes. For example, of ectothermic animals today, larger ones are found in the tropics where it is hottest, and smaller ones are found farther from the
equatorThe equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis of rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass. In simpler language, it is an imaginary line on the Earth's surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole that divides the Earth...
.
External links