TECH NEWS: IT, TECHNOLOGY - The fossil of a giant boa discovered in Colombia

Saturday, 19 May 2012 03:33

The fossil of a giant boa discovered in Colombia

The reptile, which lived there 60 million years, would weigh a tonne to 13 meters long. He ate a crocodile.

It would bring a snake for a small glass of earth. The measurements of the largest fossil snake discovered yesterday in a mine in Colombia endless more surprising. Along nearly 13 meters, this beast lived there 60 million years and weighed over a tonne, according to experts. "It could have easily eat an animal the size of a cow," says Jack Conrad, a specialist in snakes American Museum of Natural History in New York. Crocodiles and turtles found in all cases on the list of its usual prey. A python in Egypt so far held the record for length, with its 10 meters. The heaviest snake ever found weighed about 183kg him.

The fossil unearthed in Colombia has been named Titanoboa cerrejonensis boa titanic Cerrejon the name of the town of Cerrejon where he was discovered. The creature walking its 13 meters long under the trees of tropical forests, some of the hottest places in the world. The size of a snake is indeed linked to the heat of its environment, says a study published in Nature on Thursday and on this fossil. This discovery therefore "potentially frightening implications for what we are doing to the climate today," said paleontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto Mississauga. These monsters are rampant and they reappear with global warming? No, say scientists: "We will not have giant snakes, because we are destroying much of their habitat to development and deforestation," says Head.