Bats and Snakes

I'm a big fan of bats. Beyond giving us Batman, which is a sure bonus, they are fascinating creatures that benefit humans in a great number of ways. Bats currently face a grave threat, however, and their populations across the US are being decimated. So-called white-nose syndrome is the culprit. Researchers are working on ways to combat the problem, but time is running out.

Scientists have also discovered the fossilized remains of the largest snake ever known to have existed.

A colossal snake about the length of a school bus slithered about South America's rainforests some 60 million years ago, according to an analysis of the skeletal remains of what is now considered the largest snake ever identified.

"It's the biggest snake the world has ever known," said Jason Head, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga and part of an international team who discovered and identified the snake bones.

He added, "The snake's body was so wide that if it were moving down the hall and decided to come into my office to eat me, it would literally have to squeeze through the door."

Fossils of the extinct snake species, now called Titanoboa cerrejonensis, were discovered in the Cerrejon Coal Mine in northern Colombia.

From the fossilized vertebrae, the researchers conservatively estimate the snake weighed about 2,500 pounds and measured nearly 43 feet nose to tail tip.

The giant reptile was a boine snake, a type of non-venomous constrictor that includes anacondas and boas. In the same fossil rainforest, the researchers also found giant sea turtles and crocodile relatives.

In fact, while alive, the snake likely gorged on its crocodilian neighbors.

"We think it was a completely aquatic snake, that it didn't really go out on land except to bask every once in a while," Head told LiveScience.

Yikes... and very cool.

4 February 2009