My Titanoboa beats your backward whale

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Brandon Haught

Jonathan, your backward whale is wimpy. Yes, you read that right. Wimpy!

The University of Florida presents Titanoboa!

Partial skeletons of a new giant, boa constrictor-like snake named “Titanoboa” found in Colombia by an international team of scientists and now at the University of Florida are estimated to be 42 to 45 feet long, the length of the T-Rex “Sue” displayed at Chicago’s Field Museum, said Jonathan Bloch, a UF vertebrate paleontologist who co-led the expedition with Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobotanist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

Researchers say the extinct snake was even larger than the wildest dreams of directors of modern horror movies.

Crikey! Short video story here. Some pictures here. Make sure to check out that last picture, which is an artist’s depiction of the snake.

About Brandon Haught

Communications Director for Florida Citizens for Science.
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3 Responses to My Titanoboa beats your backward whale

  1. James F says:
    February 4, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    Sponges may be small, but these are another awesome discovery!

    According to Love, the climatic shock of the extensive glacial episodes of the Neoproterozoic era (1000-542 million years ago) likely caused a major reorganization of marine ecosystems, perhaps by irrevocably altering ocean chemistry.

    “This paved the way for the evolution of animal feeders living on the seafloor,” he said. “We believe we are converging on the correct date for the divergence of complex multicellular animal life, on the shallow ocean floor between 635 and 750 million years ago.”

  2. PatrickHenry says:
    February 4, 2009 at 9:44 pm

    I ain’t no kin to no sponge.

  3. Jonathan Smith says:
    February 5, 2009 at 10:38 am

    Brandon ,I concede to your superior (in all ways) fossil.

Comments are closed.