50-Foot-Long Fossil Snake May Be the Largest That Ever Lived

A newly described dodo Snake River in India may be the prominent that ever lived , according to a squad that studied 27 vertebrae recover from a lignite mine in India . The newfangled coinage is knight Vasuki indicus — named for India and the mythical snake that wrap itself around the cervix of the Hindu god Shiva . extrapolate the serpent ’s length from the vertebrae , which seem to come from a full - grown individual , the research worker count on that the giant snake could have been about 50 feet ( 15.2 cadence ) long , about two and a half times long than a giraffe is tall .

“ The most important finding of our study is the designation of an exceptionally large snake , which not only tally to the exist knowledge of madtsoiid snakes but also adds to the make out diverseness of snakes from the Cenozoic of India , ” said Sunil Bajpai , a vertebrate palaeontologist at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and carbon monoxide - author of the study , in an email to Gizmodo . The squad ’s research ispublishedtoday in Scientific Reports .

The snake lived in India about 47 million years ago , when the subcontinent was still ramble over to Asia from Africa and average temperature sat around 82.4 point Fahrenheit ( 28 Celsius ) . It was amadtsoiid , an out family of snake that mainly originated onGondwana , an ancient supercontinent that moderate South America , Africa , India , Australia , Arabia , and Antarctica .

An illustration of a madtsoiid snake.

An illustration of a madtsoiid snake.Illustration: S. Bajpai, modified from nixillustration.com

“ There are a phone number of potential reasons for its large size , which range from favourable environs with ample food for thought resource to lack of natural predator , ” Bajpai said . “ Another driving force could be the preponderance of warmer climatical conditions than at present . Since Snake are poikilotherms , their home body temperature fluctuates with the ambient temperature of the environment . So , higher ambient temperature would have increase the internal body temperature and metabolic rate of Vasuki , which in twist would have allowed it to grow so large . ”

The longest extant snake is the reticulated python ( M. reticulatus ) , which on a regular basis grows to over 20 feet ( 6.25 metre ) long . allot to London ’s Natural History Museum , the longest specimen hump was find in 1912 and measured just under 33 pes ( 10 meter ) . If the squad ’s approximation are right , Vasuki may have been farseeing thanTitanoboa , a gigantic boa that live in South America about 60 million year ago .

“ It is worth observe that the largest torso - length estimation of Vasuki appear to exceed that of Titanoboa , even though the vertebral property of the Indian taxon are slightly smaller than those of Titanoboa , ” the sketch authors wrote .

Reconstruction of Vasuki vertebrae.

Reconstruction of Vasuki vertebrae.Photo: S. Bajpai and D. Datta

Based on the distribution of other madtsoiid snakes , the enquiry team posits that Vasuki distributed west across southerly Eurasia to Africa after India smashed into Asia . A sufficiently serpentine route for such a greatest snake in the grass . ground on its sizing , the researchers put forward that Vasuki was a slow - be active ambush vulture — alike to modern - daytime anacondas .

“ mod snake are not so expectant , perchance because the temperatures are lower at present preventing them from reaching mammoth proportions , ” Bajpai said . “ expiration of home ground , competition from other predators ( for instance , crocodilians ) and poaching may also play a part . ”

I like a warm summertime day as much as anyone , but I guess parky conditions is a belittled cost to pay for skitter out on the whole “ giant snake in the grass overlords ” thing .

A life-size reconstruction of Titanoboa. Vasuki may have been longer.