What Was the Biggest Snake on Earth?

The Titanoboa cerrejonensis was a massive snake related to modern boas -- but it might've grown to 47 feet (14 meters) in length. Learn about this extinct South American serpent in today's episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren bulk Bomb. Here the dinosaurs were not the only
creatures that kicked the buckets sixty five and a half
million years ago. It was one of the greatest mass
extinction events of all time when the last t rex died.
Other reptilian lineages, from the winged pterosaurs to huge aquatic

(00:24):
relatives of today's monitor lizards, also fell, marking the dawn
of our current geologic era, the Cenozoic, or the Age
of Mammals. But don't let this nickname fool you. Although
mammals diversified like wild in the Cenozoic, Earth wasn't done
with giant reptiles. Yet. Scientists break the Cnozoic down into

(00:45):
subdivisions called epox and the first of these, the Paleocene
saw the rise of Titana boa Sara genensis, a colossal
snake that makes modern pythons and anaconda's look like spaghetti noodles.
Species name comes from Sarah Hone, a vast coal mine
in northern Colombia that produces tens of millions of tons

(01:07):
of coal every year. Yet coal isn't the only precious
commodity available there. Working alongside the miners, paleontologists have an
earth thousands of Cenozoic fossils and Sarah hone, approximately fifty
eight million years old. These fossils date back to the
early Paleocene and represent plants similar to bananas and coconuts,

(01:28):
plus river fish, crocodile like predators, and turtles with shells
nearly six ft or two meters long, just to name
a few. These fossils tell us the area was tropical
and swampy, much like the Amazon River Delta today. Why
leaved jungle trees would have flanked ancient rivers choked with
water plants and out in the steaming wilderness. Titanoboa lurked.

(01:52):
Fossils from twenty eight of these giant snakes have been
recovered at sarah Holme. Unfortunately, they've yet to locate a
complete scala ten. Instead, the scientific community has had to
make do with an assortment of ribs, vertebra, and some
skull material. Yet even these fines speak volumes. By comparing
the fossils to the bones of living snakes, we can

(02:13):
get a pretty good idea of what Titana Boa looked like.
For example, subtle clues in the vertebra indicate that the
animal was what's called a bood. It makes sense geographically.
Boads are a family of snakes usually found in the America's.
Being non venomous, they tend to kill by constriction. Of
all the boats alive today. Titana BoA's closest relative might

(02:35):
be the red tailed boa, a denizen of Central and
South America that can grow up to thirteen feet or
four meters long. If you happen to be familiar with
the film A Clockwork Orange, it's the snake that Alex keeps.
Titana Boa also invites comparisons to a much larger boad,
the green anaconda, Weighing up to four hundred and forty

(02:56):
pounds that's two hundred kilos. This South American serpent is
the heaviest modern snake. The biggest reliably measured specimen was
over twenty seven ft or eight meters in length over
in Asia. The unrelated reticulated python can exceed this figure,
stretching up to twenty eight feet or eight and a
half meters long in some cases, but the reddick has

(03:18):
a sleeker frame. Experts don't think it can rival the
anaconda's maximum waite. Regardless, neither serpent could have held a
candle to Titanaboa. Scientists estimate that the Paleocene predator could
have been forty two to forty seven ft in total
length about thirteen to fourteen meters, and theoretically it might

(03:39):
have tipped the scales at one and a quarter tons
longer than the Tyrannosaurus rex. Titanoboa Sara genensis is the
biggest snake known to science, living or extinct. So here's
a question, what would a snake so massive eat? Green
anaconda's famously eat. Cappabert is the adorable pig sized rodents

(04:02):
with semi aquatic habits. Smaller cousins of the American alligator
are also on their menu. When the Smithsonian created a
life sized Titanaboa sculpture for display as part of its
Titanaboa Monster Snake Exhibit, in it showed the mighty snake
wolfing down a crocodilian. Google a picture of this. It
is the fastest that I've said nope about anything. All

(04:25):
weak and we live in nope filled times. The following year,
researchers published a description of Titanaboa as head structure. Anatomically,
the reptile's teeth and jaws resemble those of modern snakes
that specialize in eating fish. If Titanaboa followed suit, that
would make it the only boat on record with a
fish centric diet. Like the green anaconda, Titanaboa probably spent

(04:50):
a great deal of time in bodies of water. There,
it could have more easily lugged its massive body weight
around and beat the jungles sweltering heat. Researchers have side
of this animal as evidence of the Paleocen's hot climate.
Climate scientists think the world was far warmer in the
early Paleocene than it is today, reptiles may have reaped

(05:10):
the benefits. For the most part, snakes, lizards, turtles, and
crocodiles can't generate body heat the way that mammals like
us do. Instead, they maintain their vital functions by absorbing
warmth from their environments. So by taking into account titani
BoA's size, scientists can make an educated guess about the
environment that it lived in. By some calculations, the very

(05:33):
existence of such a huge, cold blooded reptile indicates that
Columbia must have had a mean annual temperature of eighty
six to ninety three degrees fahrenheit. That's thirty to thirty
four degrees celsius, and the snake reigned fifty eight million
years ago. But perhaps dead boards aren't the most reliable gauges.
We spoke via email with Kale Snyderman, an earth scientist

(05:56):
at the University of Melbourne in Australia who studies prestoric
climb and ecosystems. He notes that the Pleistocene, an epoch
that ended about ten thousand years ago and included Earth's
most recent ice age, also had its share of big reptiles.
He said many now extinct reptile species existed in the
Palistocene that were larger than their living relatives. Those extinct

(06:18):
species lived at a time when climates pretty much everywhere
were at least one to three degrees celsius, about two
to five degrees fahrenheit cooler than today. Consider Varanus priscus,
a komodo dragon relative the patrolled Australia during the last
ice Age. At roughly fifteen feet or five and a
half meters long, it was far bigger than the lizards

(06:39):
we have today. And speaking of saurians, the biggest getto
of all time died out in its native New Zealand
just a few hundred years ago. Snyderman said, neither occurred
in warm climates by global standards. It could be that
giant reptiles don't need an oppressively hot planet to survive
and thrive. After all, petition for mammals might be a

(07:01):
bigger check on their success. In any case, Titana boa
is long gone, so is the ice age Komodo dragon
and the Great New Zealand gecko. Yet their cousins remain
enriching our world with flashy scales, forked tongues, and adhesive topads.
This may be an age of mammals, but there are

(07:21):
still some wonderful reptiles among us. Today's episode was written
by Mark Vancini and produced by Tyler Clang. For more
on this lots of other weighty topics, visit how stuff
works dot com. Brain Stuff. It's a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts in My heart Radio, visit
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(07:43):
to your favorite shows.