60 million years ago, following the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, giant snakes roamed the
Americas.
The biggest of these snakes was known as Titanoboa and it was just as terrifying as it sounds.
Related to modern-day boa constrictors, Titanoboa was a monster.
Thankfully, Titanoboa went extinct, but what if it didn’t?
That’s exactly what we are going to talk about, right now on life’s biggest questions.
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Is there anything scarier than a gigantic snake?
A team of scientists found a Titanoboa fossil at an open pit coal mine in Colombia.
The Titanoboa makes modern day anacondas look like toys.
According to fossils, Titanoboa was 12.8 meters or 42 feet long and weighed about 1,100 kg
or 2500 pounds.
But because snake fossils are extremely hard to find, it's not completely out of the question
that it could have grown to be even larger.
Its believed that Titanoboa ate large turtles and crocodylomorphs, which were essentially
giant crocodiles.
The Titanoboa lived in what is believed to have been the first recorded Neotropical forest
that ever existed, where Central and South America exist today.
How did Titanoboa get so big?
Well back during the Paleocene era, the earth was quite a bit warmer.
The average temperature of its habitat was, on average, about 32 degrees Celsius, or 90
degrees Fahrenheit.
The warm climate allowed for cold-blooded snakes to grow very large, much larger than
any snake we currently know of.
Even to this day, as you move away from the equator, ectothermic animals decrease in size.
Titanoboa became the rainforest’s top predator, and for good reason.
It is the biggest snake to ever have lived.
Titanoboa killed its victims using asphyxiation, where it wrapped itself tightly around its
prey and squeezed until it suffocated.
Once you are in the Titanoboa mouth, there is no escape.
Row upon row of sharp, curved teeth that point to the rear of its mouth keeps the prey moving
toward the stomach.
Titanoboa slithered around in water and swamps.
Thankfully, Titanoboa began to go extinct toward the beginning of the Miocene era, but
now that you know a little about Titanoboa, let's talk about what would happen if it never
went extinct in the first place.
First things first, because Titanoboa would need to live in warm climates, it would only
be able to survive in rainforests near the equator.
This would be good news for everyone who lived farther north or south of the equator.
It would, however, mean bad news for any central and south Americans that lived anywhere near
the habitat of Titanoboa.
Indigenous people in the area like the Aztecs and the Incas probably would have regarded
Titanoboa as a god and would have made sacrifices to it.
That is if Titanoboa didn’t prey on them.
As Titanoboa hunted mostly in water, a way for forest-dwelling people to escape it could
be to build their homes in trees.
In modern times, there would, of course, be hunters who would try to track down Titanoboa
for various reasons, perhaps even for food.
Titanoboa meat would be considered a delicacy, one food connoisseurs would be eager to put
on their plates.
But catching a Titanoboa would not be easy.
Navigating the difficult, swampy terrain of the rainforest would be needless to say, difficult.
But one thing you could do to lure it close would be to set a trap.
Crocodiles, the Titanoboa's main food source, also lived until modern day.
Set a trap with a crocodile and wait for boa to come to you.
Once it devoured its meal, like most snakes, it would be tired and less likely to attack.
This would be the perfect time to strike.
Countless books and television shows would be made about the Titanoboa.
Nature Shows like BBC’s planet earth would do everything in their power, even risk lives
to get footage of it.
It's not likely that the Titanoboa would be kept in zoos, after all, it's huge, and it
would have to be fed crocodiles.
No one knows exactly why Titanoboa went extinct.
The main theory is that the temperature of the earth began to cool.
The hotter the temperature, the bigger the snakes, but the same is true for the opposite.
This is because, in places where the temperature is constantly hot, the metabolism of reptiles
operates sufficiently.
The bigger you get, the more energy you need to sustain you.
But Once the global temperature began to drop, its metabolism could not adjust, and eventually,
it went extinct.
And I’m not mad about it.
I don’t know about you, but even small snakes scare the crap out of me.
For now, I’m Charlotte Dobre and you’ve been watching life’s biggest questions,
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