Meet The 42-Foot Snake That Ruled Earth After The Dinosaurs — A Biologist Explains

By Scott Travers – Forbes

In the humid swamps of what is now Colombia, there was once a snake longer than a city bus and heavier than a small car that dominated the landscape. Its name is Titanoboa cerrejonensis, and the “titan” part captures only a fraction of its true scale. It measured in at an estimated 42 feet (13 meters) long, and it weighed more than 2,500 pounds (1,133 kilograms). Titanoboa, to date, is the largest snake paleontologists have ever discovered.

But beyond its immense size alone, Titanoboa also teaches us how the Earth’s climate shaped evolution, during a time when it was recovering from the greatest mass extinction since the dinosaurs disappeared.