The Basilisk, a mythical super snake that can kill an animal with just one look.
A Titanoboa – an extinct uber apex predator that run riot around 60 million years ago.
What if this pair of sneks got into a snakey tussle!
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I am your host, Rebecca Felgate
and today I am asking What if a Titanoboa Fought a Basilisk snake.
What an episode!
This is like a high drama snakes on a plane…but without the plane… butttt with snakes basically
the size of a plane!
Oof.
Before we slither in to this slippery yet venomous video, I want to ask you guys off
the bat if you are team Titanoboa or Team Basilisk….
Also let me know your general feeling towards snakes in the comments section down below.
So…let’s start with the long dead but real snake.
The Titanoboa lived for 2 million years around 60 million years ago – which is a long time
on top.
The snake is thought to be the largest that ever existed and was thought to be around
12.8 meters in length, so 42 ft…roughly the size of a house.
Good old ancient snakey also weighed a heft amount – around 2,500 lbs to be precise
– so around 1133 kilos.
Chunky.
So chunky it is though that at one time it was the largest non marine creature living
on earth.
The Titanoboa was not thought to be venomous, and actually was like a MUCH MUCH bigger modern
day Boa Constrictor.
The Titanoboa was thought to have killed its prey by crushing it with a force of 400lbs
per square inch.
What about the basilisk?
Well, the basilisk is mythical and reports on what exactly it looked like vary.
In Greek, Basilisk means little king and in Greek legend, the basilisk was a small reptile
hatched by a cockerel from the egg of a serpent or toad.
If it were small like some accounts portray it, then a face off between the biggest snake
to ever exist and a tiny king would be kind of funny… unless you are the basilisk, of
course…
being sat on and crushed by a giant snake 1000 times your size might be a bit of a buzz
kill.
The Titanoboa wouldn’t even need to really try if the Basilisk were a wee beasty.
That being said, as I mentioned, reports to vary, with many saying the basilisk was actually
a giant snake.
It certainly is portrayed as giant in Harry Potter – with the snake looking like it
could be around 50ft in length, matching it up with the Titanoboa.
The basilisk has some key features that the Titanoboa does not- while the venom of a basilisk
is exceptionally potent and can kill an adult human as well as many other large animals
- its main weapon is that it can kill a stare.
Living creatures will perish if they look a basilisk in the eye.
An indirect look also has the ability to petrify – basically paralyze a creature.
If both snakes were of equal size, even though the titanoboa could squeeze harder, all the
basilisk would have to do would be look the other snake in the eye and it would be curtains
for the err…already extinct Titanobia.
Even if the Basilisk couldn’t get a full look… a side glance would be enough to paralyze
the apex predator!
If the Titanoboa started attempting the squeeze, the Basilisk could bite it and inject it with
its venom.
Whether or not the venom would be enough to kill the fellow snake, it is hard to say,
it could incapacitate it for sure, then, as it was weakened, it could give the Titanoboa
the old looky looky.
My favourite way to imagine this fight, though, is if the basilisk, as some accounts put it,
is indeed a tiny king.
A little but deadly snake fighting a huge, giant, fatty bom batty from the Palaeocene
era?
Here for it.
That may even up the fight… but the basilisk should just about still win …. Maybe it
should flea to higher ground and just stare down the giant snake?
That would be the way I’d play it.
So guys, that is what we think would happen if the mythical basilisk fought the extinct
giant Titanoboa snake.
Obviously it is quite hard to pit real and mythical against one another… but we like
to do our very best here at the imagination station that is Life’s Biggest Questions.
Who else would you like to see fight it out?
Let me know!
Who do you think would win here?
Am I right in saying the Basilisk?
Let me know.
Also while you are down there, why don’t you leave me with a thumbs up, share this
video with a friend!
I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you in the next video but until then, stay
curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.