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Big Snake, Big Warming
The discovery of fossilised remains belonging to the world’s largest snake has been reported in Nature journal.
Titanoboa was 13m (42ft) long – about the length of a bus – and lived in the rainforest of north-east Colombia 58-60 million years ago.
Assuming the Earth today was not particularly unusual, the researchers calculated that a snake of Titanoboa’s size would have required an average annual temperature of 30C to 34C (86F to 93F) to survive.
By comparison, the average yearly temperature of today’s Cartagena, a Colombian coastal city, is about 28C.
BBC News website: Largest snake ‘as long as a bus’
Interestingly, atmospheric CO2 concentrations 60 million years ago were about 2000 ppmv compared to around 380 ppmv today. The world didn’t end, nor was there ‘runaway’ warming, irreversible tipping points or irreversible global warming.
July 31st, 2009 at 8:15 am
To my knowledge ‘Giganthopis Garstini’ is the longest prehistoric snake ever found, it inhabited Egypt about 38 million years ago. Its remains discovered in Fayum (western desert) indicate a probable length of 11m (36ft). Now it seems that Titanoboa has broaken the record of Giganthopis Garstini. Thanks for this info.