WEBVTT - What's the largest snake that has ever existed? 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.400 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.400 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.360 where do you stand on giant snakes? Where do I 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:21.440 stand on? And not near the head? That's right, That's 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.880 that's the worst place to stand. Yeah, what about you? Um, 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.720 I've always loved him, um, you know, because I think 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.920 probably from like an early age seeing U Cob the 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.000 Snake and Jungle Book trying to eat mowgli. Um, you 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.720 can't help it be fascinated with the seductive power of 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.160 of any kind of serpent, right, and then the possibility 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.520 they can swallow you whole and it and just how 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.479 inhuman the creature is, no arms or legs, just slithering around. 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:55.200 That's funny you bring up a jungle Book because related Ricky, Ticky, Tavi, 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.560 Nag and nagaina some of my favorites in action there, 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.120 but also the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad from Kill Bill 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.959 Volumes One and two. Oh yes, which was more like 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.320 the human embodiment of snakes. Yeah, but yeah, certainly just 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:16.040 the symbolic power of snakes throughout human history can't be denied. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.640 But because they end up representing so much, you have, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.360 like your cosmic world serpents in so many different cultures, 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.720 the idea that there's some gigantic primal snake that plays 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:34.400 into the creation and or destruction of the world. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.679 which we we did an entire episode on which I'll 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.920 include a link to that on the landing page for 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.320 this episode. But but even in popular culture, um, modern 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.560 pop culture, we see giant snakes continue to pop up. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.520 We we can't help but be fascinated by the uh 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.160 you know, the struggle between stay Conan the Barbarian and 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:57.160 a giant snake in in Bulsa Dooms Dungeon. That was 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.280 certainly when I was enjoyed watching up. That's only one 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.720 I always enjoyed watching as I was growing up. Um 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.480 Or then, of course there's Anaconda in which digested John 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:14.320 Voight falls out of the monster serpent. There's also Beetlejuice. Oh, yes, 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.480 with the the sand worming creatures. Well, actually Michael Keaton 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.360 turns into a snake, giant snake on the banister. But yes, 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.560 at the end of the movie or near the end, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.600 he's consumed by the sandform. And I think Freddy Crueger 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.000 also turned into it like a big snake in eight 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.480 one of the victims in three or four I can't remember, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.919 dream Warriors maybe. And in terms of mythology too, you'll 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:44.560 see that Groutslan is an Afrikaans word meaning great snake. 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:46.720 And by the way, this is from the Mental philost 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.160 article eleven Legendary Monsters of Africa and the monster of 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.000 that name grouts Lang lives in a cave called the 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.680 Wonder Hole and the area of South Africa. And the 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.440 story is that the original broots groots Long was found 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.320 to be too powerful, so the gods subdivided the animal 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:09.280 into two species, the elephant in the snake. Yeah, however, 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.480 Groups Long or two escaped in we'd have to have two, right, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.920 and uh, they reproduced. So that's the idea of this, 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.720 and that this monster could grow up to sixty feet long. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.400 And supposedly it's cave is full of diamonds, but nobody 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.120 knows for sure because Groups Long is guarding it. Yeah, 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:28.920 who's gonna the only way you're gonna wind up in 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.079 that cave? I guess you. You pass through the other 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.200 side of the snake. Well, And what I love about 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.200 this is that there's this idea that I have on 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.480 my mind, this romantic notion of back in the day, 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.560 everybody's sitting around the fire and talking about groots long, 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:48.200 this giant snake growing to sixty feet long, indeed so tall, 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.600 tales of of of what snakes can consist of and 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:53.920 how big they can get. Yeah, getting to the heart 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.800 of our question today. Yeah, indeed, what is the largest 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.400 snake that has ever existed? So obviously, by the way 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.600 we phrase this question, they are kind of two areas 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.600 where going to explore. The first question being what's the 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.480 largest snake alive today, which, as you'll explore, is a 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.680 little more complicated above a question than you might think. 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.320 And then what is the largest snake that has ever lived? 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.039 Taking into an account the the fossil record and what 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:24.880 we know about large serpents in prehistoric times. And you know, 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:26.839 what do you mean by large? Do you mean weight 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.400 or a link? That's right? So, uh, to that meet 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.039 this criteria, which you could call. The largest snakes in 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.120 the world presently living are the reticulated python and the 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.240 green anaconda. And in both the cases we are definitely 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.960 talking about the females of the species, because the females 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:49.080 are larger in both the reticulated python and the green anaconda. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.479 Now it's worth noting that on March six of this year, 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.760 the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared the reticulated python 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.760 and the green anaconda as two of four injury US 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.400 Wildlife pieces and will prohibit import of the snakes into 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.760 the US and its territories, as well as transport across 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.960 state lines. Uh this is because not only are these 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.520 these two snakes some of the largest living snakes, they 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.919 are also traded commercially as pets. And what that means 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.080 is that sometimes these really powerful snakes have been intentionally 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.360 released into the wild, while others will escape enclosures. And 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.080 so if you look at Florida, for instance, where you've 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.440 seen the Burmese python taking over parts of Florida, you'll 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.560 see that the native wildlife is really at risk because 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.960 these snakes, their sides and their strength they make they 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.520 make them apex predators in the environments that they're already 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.839 indigenous too. But put them in one where there are 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.720 lesser predators around, you can see how they would run 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.560 rampant and to just give you an idea of the 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.280 kind of strength that they're sporting. Here, I mean to 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.840 turn to this account by Todd Mexico, writing for an 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.760 multiversity dot Org, he says, um, with reticulated pythons, if 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.840 the antlers, because they go after unculates, are small enough, 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:15.280 they are simply ingested and digested. However, if the antlers 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.479 are too large on the animals trying to take down, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.360 the snake can actually break them back to lie alongside 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.640 the body and then consume them. Um. Then he says 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.159 that sometimes, very rarely, that the snake that particulated python 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.640 actually swallows the hind quarters and then when it works 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:36.200 its way to the antlers, it stops and it allows 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.159 its digestive acids to break down the animals flesh until 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:45.520 the antlers actually become weak and drop off, essentially decapitating 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.240 the creature with your own digestive fluids. I love that 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.920 this is such a wonderful, grotesque ou thing that I mean, 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.320 that's the reason. Uh, you know, you can't help but 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.240 but love these giant serpents, you know, particularly the constrictors. Yeah, 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.479 it's grizzly stuff, and and yes you're attracted, but also 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.640 repulsed by them. Yeah, I'm even when you go to 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:06.200 the pet store, it's like you don't really want to 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.760 see the cute little mouse eaten by the snake, but 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.880 you can't look away, and yet you probably don't look away. 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.840 All right, So let's uh, let's look at these two 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.160 species and a little more detail. Uh. First, we have 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:26.440 the Asian reticulated python, Python reticulatis, so called for the 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.680 geometric color pattern on its body. They thrive and steamy 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.800 tropical rainforest throughout Southeast Asia. Uh. They need water, and 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.520 they need tropical environments with temperatures in the range of 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:42.000 eight degrees fahrenheit, so they're like it hot. Uh. They're 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:47.040 non social, solitary creatures. They ambush their prey frequently waiting 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.640 in trees. And that's gonna be key when we start 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.160 talking about their their their length and weight, because obviously 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:55.480 the creature has to crawl up into the into the trees. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:57.840 It's not gonna be just super heavy. It has to 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.240 have a certain amount of lightness on its inside. They 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.720 tend to feed on birds and mammals, and as far 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.200 as the mammals go, the smaller ones, the younger ones 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.160 are gonna eat mostly rats, but as they grow, and 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.480 they grow throughout their life, they're gonna shift to larger mammals, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:17.040 so porcupines, monkeys, wild pigs, mouse, deer uh. And Now, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.040 like all reptiles, they have a low metabolic rate, which 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.440 allows them to go without food for a long period 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.800 of time. So it's not a situation where they're having 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.200 to eat a monkey every day, but they score a 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.920 monkey every once in a while. They're good. Right. Um. Again, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.360 the females grow the largest, and they usually lay twenty 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.600 five to eighty or so eggs. Uh. And they also 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.560 they they provide a certain amount of care and protection 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.520 for the eggs until they hatch, and then once they hatch, 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.400 there on their own. Now, as far as how big 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:52.360 these uh, these these gals get. Field measurements in survey 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.280 averaged a little under twelve feet or three point two 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.720 meters in the jungles of southern Sumatra, maxing out at 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.720 just shy of twenty eight six point one. Um. You'll 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.599 find less reputable accounts they hit the thirty three and 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.800 forty mark, but we'll get to those shortly. For the 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.360 most part, however, you're going to find the longer reported 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:19.280 measurements with the reticulated Now in the other corner here 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:24.320 of the ring, we have unixte miranus, that is the 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:29.400 green anaconda, and though it's not as long as reticulated python, 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.120 it is the uncontested heavyweight champion of the snake world 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.000 according to the National Zoo. In captivity, they can grow 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.520 to twenty nine ft long, they can weigh more than 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.600 five fifty pounds, and they can have a diameter of 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.800 more than twelve inches. Now, most documented instances of anaconda's 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.400 weights are more in the two hundred to four hundred 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:58.240 range and grow to about twenty feet in length. So well, 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.880 we can say that this long and fifty is at 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.360 the outer limits of its morphology. Now they're a member 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.640 of the Boa family and they can be found in swamps, 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:12.160 marshes and slow moving streams in Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:18.360 northern Bolivia, northeastern Peru, and French Guiana. And no surprise here. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.600 The anaconda is a great swimmer, super stealthy in the water, 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.520 and part of that is because its weight is being 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.600 held up by the buoyancy of the water, right which 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.040 it allows it to go much faster and it can 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.240 remain underwater for up to ten minutes at a time. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:39.079 So anacondas like crocodiles, have eyes and nostrils that are 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.440 designed to poke above the surface of the water, and 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:47.280 that really helps them to strike very quickly and efficiently. 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:53.320 So on land they're not so elegant and stealthy, but 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.840 they can sidewine and they use these large j shaped 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.360 coils to pull themselves along, which I think really speaks 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:03.680 to how incredibly muscular they are. Now they are non 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:08.800 venomous constrictors. They coil those those muscular bodies around captured 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.880 prey and they squeeze until the animals phyxiates. They can 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.599 unhinge their jaws to stretch their mouths around the prey, 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.520 eating the carcass whole, and they have four rows of 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.280 backwards facing teeth on their upper jaws to help grab 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.320 prey really fastened and swallow it whole. They dine on 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:32.760 wild pigs, dear birds, turtles, caymans, even jaguars, and on occasion, 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.600 white tailed deer, which can grow to be about a 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.320 hundred and fifty pounds or more in the wild, which 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.319 makes you go, oh, a hundred fifty pounds, and that 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.400 that's kind of on par with humans, So would they 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.760 go after a human? And despite the premise of the 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.520 show Eating Alive, in which naturalist Paul Rosalie offers himself 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.640 to be swallowed whole by an anaconda, there are no 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:04.200 verified reports of anaconda's ingesting a human being. Yeah. I mean, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.400 it's just it's gonna be a harder kill to make, write, 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.719 a harder ambush to pull off. And are there a 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.080 lot of humans around in their immediate environment? Um? Now, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.320 when it comes to maximum sizes for both of these species, 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:19.960 you might think it would be easy to just find 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.439 a good ballpark figure about how big these these these 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.200 gals can get. Uh. But but you'd be wrong. And 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.160 I found this out when I was putting together an 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.960 article for for How Stuff Works. Um It. It quickly 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.040 becomes a game of like whose figures do you trust? 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.640 And whose whose figures are they trusting? Um And if 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.960 you want to really thorough breakdown of the different accounts 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.160 of maximum size of both the reticulated python and the 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.880 green anaconda, UM, I would recommend you check out John C. 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.520 Murphy's website on record snake Sizes on clue to link 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.160 to that on the page for this episode. UM, because 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.400 you basically, when it comes to these these reports of 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.240 giant snakes, which themselves are rare occurrences in remote locations, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.920 often tended to by untrained individuals, you see local hearsay 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.840 at times, you see second and third hand accounts. You 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.280 see mere sightings where someone just saw the snake and 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.120 they're giving you an estimation on how long they think 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.480 it was. Um. Certainly just exaggerated accounts, just sort of 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.240 like the I cotta fish this big situation, and it 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.200 grows with the telling right questionable measurement techniques. In some cases, 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.600 they'll be questions about, well did you measure it from 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.520 you know, the from snout to tail or are you 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.520 dealing with the with the decapitated body? Is this the 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.520 hide and it is the hide? Are you stretching it 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.200 out when you're measuring it? And how are you measuring it? 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.840 Are you just walking alongside it and doing paces? Are 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.520 you using rods? Are using measurement tape? Um? All these 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.120 questions end up coming into play. And I would imagine 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.200 too that it's not like going to your vent and 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.160 just dropping your dog on the scale. Right. If you're 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.640 trying to weigh a snake. There's a lot more to it, 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.840 I mean in terms of going to get a handle 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.560 on this and then accurately weigh it. And again, these 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.880 are encounters that are occurring often in remote locations, again 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.240 with with untrained individuals. UM. I'm gonna just roll through 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.040 a couple of encounters that Murphy outlines on his website. 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:21.120 One is an alleged thirty three foot reticulated python UH 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.640 that was mentioned in the ninety Natural History magazine story 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.120 and the story itself was about a nineteen twelve siding 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.720 and UH. As Murphy points out this, this stat, this 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.520 thirty three foot stat continues to pop up in articles 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.680 on giant snakes, despite his continued efforts to try and 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:43.000 uh and kill it. Um. Here is what the author 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.720 of the original piece, Harry c Raven, wrote, and you 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.400 can tell us how reputable it sounds. He says, I 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.680 left the schooner and went inland a short distance to 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.400 camp on the mountains, which were covered with virgin jungle. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:57.360 The white men at the mind told me of a 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.480 huge python one of their relatives that killed a few 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.760 days before of my arrival, and showed me a very 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.480 poor photograph of it. Taken after it had been killed 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.080 and dragged a camp. Though the print was dull, you 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.480 could see a man standing on the huge body, which 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.040 was about a foot thick. A civil engineer told me 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.560 that it was just ten meters long. I asked him 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.760 if he had had I asked him if he had 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:18.960 taste off its length, but he said no, he had 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.480 measured it with the surveying tape. So here you see 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.440 a number of factors. Right, it was witnessed by other 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.640 people killed before he arrived. And as Murphy points out 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:31.840 on his website, where do you get a photo to 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:38.520 alot that quickly? In nineteen twelve, Sulawesi okay, so photograph, hearsay, 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.560 I'm not sure if the methods entirely Yeah, what could 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.720 go wrong with that? I know? And still, as he 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.200 points out, you still see that's that that that length 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.840 of that record length showing up in various articles and 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:56.680 wiki pages. Another record length that continued to pop up 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.760 throughout the later twentieth century came from the Done Lehman 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.600 record of a green anaconda. So the way this one 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.000 broke down is in nineteen forty four, herpetologist immit Ray 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.800 Read Done published an article on the reptiles of Columbia, 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.800 and it included a statement from his friend and geologist 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.640 Robert Lehman, who was working in the area for an 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.480 oil company. Lehman claimed to have killed and measured an 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:24.080 eleven point five meter anaconda in eastern Colombia. Raymond Gilmore 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.560 of the US Fish and Wildlife Service later investigated this 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.800 record in nineteen fifty four, and the results were less encouraging. 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.560 Lehman later stated in a in a letter about his 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.560 encounter with the snake. He says, if memory serves me right, 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.080 it required almost three lengths of the rod to obtain 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.720 the dimensions. But I could not swear to this in 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.800 that it may have just been almost two lengths of 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.760 the rod. So again you see somebody's sort of faint 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.800 recollection of how it went down in in a remote location, uh, 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.480 dealing with the un endeavor outside of his field of 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.400 expertise using a rod as a measurement, Yeah, for a 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:03.400 dead snake. So so hopefully this helps to illustrate just 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.440 a little bit of the problems you get into when 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:09.240 you're dealing with these these often old accounts of particularly 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.080 large specimens. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:14.840 and we get back. We're going to venture into the 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:28.040 sarajn rainforest. Alright, we're back. Alright, Julie, let's jump into 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:32.160 the time machine, take us back to the hopefully safely, 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.920 to the Sarah Jean Rainforest. Well, the Sarah Hone Rainforest 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.600 once hosted the largest snake that ever existed, or that 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.639 we know about so far. And the reason why we 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:48.240 know that is because sixty million year old fossils of 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:52.720 the titan Boa sajus were discovered in a Colombian coal 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.600 mine by a paleontologists led by Jonathan Block of the 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:01.160 University of Florida and Carlo Sierramo of the Smithsonian Tropical 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.679 Research Institute. So, what we're talking about here, and we 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.720 won't go into too many specifics right now, but we're 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.679 talking about a snake that was longer than a great 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:17.359 white and bigger than a hippo. Now, the Titan Boa 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.040 was sustained by a neotropical rainforest that would have come 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.879 into existence in the Paleocene epoch, shortly after the extinction 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.680 of dinosaurs. But according to Scott Wing, a paleontologist from 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.200 the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the rainforest had 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.080 a really low plant diversity, and he chalks this up 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.240 to well, it could either be because of a new 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.360 type of plant community that still hadn't had time to diversify, 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.560 or it was still recovering from the events that caused 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:51.600 the mass extinction of dinosaurs sixty five million years ago. Uh. 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.000 But of course, even though this was a huge creature, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.080 that does not mean that it didn't have competition, because 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.199 in two thousand and eleven, University of Florida researchers discovered 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.720 the fossils of a twenty foot extinct species in that 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.960 same Colombian coal mine. And this is a freshwater relative 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.280 to modern crocodiles. It is the first known land animal 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:19.000 from Palatine New World tropics specialized for eating fish, meaning 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.680 that it competed with titan boa for food. And it's 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.119 the second crocodila form that was found in the same cave. 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:28.480 But of course the the other one was the diet 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.000 was more generalized, so it wouldn't have been competing with 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.000 the titan boa. So although this twenty ft long relative 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.680 to the croc would have been really formidable, uh, it's 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:43.080 it's a much smaller and more vulnerable offspring. Probably would 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.840 have shown up on Titan BoA's dinner plate. Yeah, they 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.840 were kind of co apex predators in this uh this 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:57.399 really steamy, dangerous world, tropical environment full of car size 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.920 turtles on one hand, and then twenty ft uh hell 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:02.840 crocks on the other. And I say hell crocks because 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.600 they named the species after one of the rivers and 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:11.480 Dante's inferno. Um. But then the Titana Boa itself uh 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.040 palon tagists estimate it's tip tip to tail length came 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.359 in into whopping forty two ft or thirteen meters, and 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.760 it weighed more than a ton um. It would have 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.359 looked something like a modern day Boa constrictor, but it 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:28.080 would have behaved more like the water dwelling anaconda that 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.720 we described in in the first half of this episode. 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.520 So again, it's it's massive weight is is is supported 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.960 by the buoyssey of the water, and it's using that 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.200 as a means to ambush its prey. Now, palont Is 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.680 really kind of hit the jackpot in actually discovering fossil 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.639 evidence of the Titana Boa because for one thing, you, 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.960 as we've discussed before, the whole fossil game is kind 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.399 of a game of chance in some respects, you know, 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.000 are the conditions going to be just right for the 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.480 preservation of the fossils so that we can actually get 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.760 a glimpse of what what kind of skeletons these creatures 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.760 and primordial age had. Well, in this case, they got 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.600 really fortunate because they found an entire skull, which is 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.320 which is almost unheard of, an entire snake skull, The 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.719 entire Titanoboa skull uh not broken into pieces, but just 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.600 completely contained. They're preserved in the shale mud of this environment. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.240 And then they were able to collect some vertebrae as well. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.080 And then by comparing the size of the preserved vertebrae 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:33.239 fossils with the vertebrae of existing large snakes, they were 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.280 able to extrapolate just how large it would have been. 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.760 So again, forty two ft long, more than a ton. 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.920 Virtually the king and or queen of the of the environment. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.720 They're unrivaled. Once it reached its adult form, yeah, and 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.840 consider this an order to eat its prey whole. Titan 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.600 Boa had jaw bones that snapped apart and flexible ligaments 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:01.520 for opening its mouth almost one hundred and eighty degrees, 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.640 which led some very clever people at the Smithsonian Channel 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.639 to wonder because, by the way, the Smithsonian Channel has 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.040 a documentary on the Titan Boa, but it made them 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:17.240 wonder t Rex versus Titan Boa, who would come out 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.560 on top? And that's because the t Rex this we know, 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.800 has a ferocious bite, a bite force that's twice um 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.360 of a great white m guess. I mean it comes 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.560 down to who has a home turiff, I guess, and 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.040 which one is using the time machine obviously right because 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:34.280 they didn't exist at the same time. But it's it's 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.720 kind of fun to think about. Yeah. I think it 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:38.679 goes down in a like a B movie kind of 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.520 way where time travelers go back to check out the 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.720 Titana Boa, they get eaten. Titana Boa clowns into the 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.480 time machine, accidentally knocks the controls, and then it travels 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.919 through time battling various creatures. That sounds oddly like the 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.680 next alien movie in the franchise, perhaps, yeah, I say, 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.639 bring it on. Yeah, alright, so how could it have 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.400 gotten so big? We don't know exactly, of course, And 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:06.520 by the way, prehistoric largess is not exclusive to the 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:10.680 Titan Boa. For instance, the plant eating Argentina Saurus is 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.080 thought to have measured more than one hundred feet long 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.159 and weighed over one hundred tons, and the ground sloth 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:22.000 was the size of today's elephant. Can you imagine? I 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:23.679 I love to imagine it. We have a one of 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.399 those giant sloth replicas at the local Firm Bank Museum 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:29.040 here in Atlanta, and every time I get to look 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:30.719 at it, I'm just like, what would it be like 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:33.800 to smell this creature in her life? And I always 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.679 think of like, it looks like a rejected Muppet character 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:38.560 for me, and I love it. It's got that what 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:42.479 looks to be a smile alright. So one idea for 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.880 the largess is that when the ice ages occurred, warm 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.680 blooded animals increased in size to retain heat. Cold blooded 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:54.480