Hairy Museum of Natural History

15 Responses to “Titanoboa cerrejonensis”

1. Christopher Taylor, on February 4th, 2009 at 10:59 pm Said:

   The modern vertebra in the photo isn’t an anaconda, it’s the smaller Boa constrictor.

2. Matt Celeskey, on February 4th, 2009 at 11:17 pm Said:

   I had that question, too, Christopher–the vert. looks like the Boa constrictor shown in Fig. 1 of the paper. On the other hand, the caption embedded in the image files claims it’s an anaconda.

   Is there an easy way to know for certain?

3. Ed Yong, on February 5th, 2009 at 4:12 am Said:

   “Is there an easy way to know for certain?”

   I think the best way is to ask the photographer :-)

   Which I’ve done – will let you know what he says.

4. Christopher Taylor, on February 5th, 2009 at 6:31 am Said:

   I’ve sent an e-mail to the corresponding author asking which it is – hopefully he’ll clear it up.

5. Matt Celeskey, on February 5th, 2009 at 6:51 am Said:

   Of course! One of these days, I’m sure I’ll realize that comparative osteology isn’t the only way to learn…

   Thanks, Ed & Christopher…I’ll be interested to hear what you find out.

6. Heidi- Zoology student, on February 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm Said:

   Can you imagine that thing slithering past you?? It’d take half an hour! But you daren’t tell it that…
   It’s hard to imagine a creature quite that big isn’t it? especially a snake. It never occured to me that a cold-blooded organisms’ eventual adult size was dependent on the mean annual temperature of it’s environment, but then again I suppose it would have to be, wouldn’t it?
   It also fascinates me how palaeontologists manage to deduce so much information about the life of fossilized organisms that are so old, with so little information.

7. Heidi- Zoology student, on February 5th, 2009 at 2:19 pm Said:

   This is a good link on T. Cerrejonensis-
   http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5662915.ece

8. Joey Perez, on February 5th, 2009 at 3:00 pm Said:

   i think there is more than just one giant snake fossilized in the Earth’s ground. I think whoever the person is that found this monstrousis animal should think this another of this Titanoboa cerrejonensis. Do you think there could be one now in our time if not explain?

9. Christopher Taylor, on February 5th, 2009 at 3:57 pm Said:

   I’ve heard back from Jason Heads, who confirms that the press release photo is a green anaconda. That’ll teach me for being an overly clever bugger.

10. Matt Celeskey, on February 5th, 2009 at 9:14 pm Said:

    Thanks, Christopher, for finding out and reporting back–much appreciated!

    Joey – I’m no expert, but I don’t think we’ll find a snake that large in our time. Iif the scientists that described Titanoboa are correct in their climatic assumptions, then today’s tropics are too cold for a snake of that size to survive.

    Heidi – thanks for the link. I’m fascinated with what paleontologists can learn from fragmentary fossils, as well. Check out the latest post at microecos for more about how nifty this particular fossil-based inference is.

11. Zach Miller, on February 6th, 2009 at 4:54 pm Said:

    I question the biothermometer hypothesis. Couldn’t the same be said for lizards and crocs? The largest crocs (salties) don’t live in the hottest places, and neither does the largest lizard (Komodo islands). Why are snakes’ body sizes more tied to temperature than other ecothermic animals?

12. Katherine Barton, on February 10th, 2009 at 6:53 am Said:

    “Why are snakes’ body sizes more tied to temperature than other ecothermic animals?”

    I’d like to know that answer to that aswell.

    It’s sort of funny, but I’m terrified of the idea of something so very big, and at the same time I wish that we could discover a live snake of that size.

    Does anyone know of a website that has a picture of the skull of the Titanoboa? I’m curious to see how the bone structure differentiates from a modern species(which is the green anaconda, right?).

13. Chris, on February 10th, 2009 at 2:10 pm Said:

    This is a really interesting post. I found it by searching through lists of blogs at ResearchBlogging. It’s too bad you don’t use their simple citation mechanism to put some of your posts there…

14. ScottE, on February 11th, 2009 at 6:01 pm Said:

    The fact that snakes are basically really long tubes (and thus do not retain heat very well) may have something to do with their dependence upon hot climes for increasing in size.

15. I Like Mutants « Odd One Out, on October 4th, 2009 at 2:59 pm Said:

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