ILLUSTRATES Icarus Yuji
QUESTION Germano Prause da Silva, Getúlio Vargas, RS
It was a “monster” that reached 14 m in length, 1 m in diameter and 1.5 ton. Able to swallow an entire crocodile, the reptile would have emerged after the extinction of the dinosaurs, 58 million years ago, during the Paleocene period, and established itself as the largest predator on the planet for at least 10 million years. The fossilized vertebrae of the titanoboa have gone through time because they are numerous and resistant – they were around 300 and five times larger than those of the Brazilian anaconda. Discoveries in 2009 in northern Colombia suggest that it lived in swampy jungles in the region of present-day Amazonia.
steel spiral
She enjoyed ambushes, keeping to the edge of rivers with her eyes and nostrils open. At the time of the strike, it moved at 3.5 m per second, wrapping itself around the victim until it immobilized him. Then, she squeezed with a pressure that was estimated to be 400 pounds per square inch, equivalent to the weight of three Eiffel Towers! Victim died of suffocation and/or crushing
hidden in the landscape
The heat of the tropics at that time, with peaks of 40°C, would have stimulated the enormous growth of the animal. The environment may also have influenced another characteristic: it is believed that its scales had a greenish-brown tone, with black spots, imitating the pattern of aquatic leaves and ensuring efficient camouflage.
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in a single mouthful
The jaws were bipartite, that is, they were not rigidly connected. The mouth could open at an angle of 180o. Thus, it could swallow an animal four times the size of its head (some paleontologists suggest that it would even be able to bite into an entire motorcycle). The teeth were small, pointed and curved, typical of non-venomous snakes. Large eye sockets in the skull suggest that it had heat source detection organs, acting as infrared goggles.
Boating
The favorite prey used to be large ones, such as primitive crocodiles and giant tortoises. In a single “platada”, the titanoboa could send in up to 1 ton of food – about ten times more than the average meal of a tyrannosaurus rex. After swallowing everything whole, she would spend up to a year immobile digesting it.
Bad vase doesn’t break
It is believed that, in the breeding season, the female attracted the males by exhaling a strong odor and shrill hissing. She generated from ten to 80 cubs, which hatched from the eggs inside her belly and were born ready to hunt alone. Like the large prehistoric reptiles, the titanoboa lived a long time: around 30 years, according to paleontologists.
unfastening the belt
In many ways, the titanoboa was similar to modern-day snakes. For example: like boa constrictors, their ribs were able to spread apart to accommodate very large food. To propel her S-curve body, she contracted her muscles and her spine. This movement, called wave propulsion, rolled better in water, even though the creature was terrestrial.
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Other huge snakes from different eras
Gigantophis garstini
WHEN 40 million years ago
WHERE Africa
SIZE 10.7m
sanajeh indicus
WHEN 65 million years ago
WHERE South America, Oceania and Africa
SIZE 3.5m
ball python (Python reticulatus)
WHEN Current affairs
WHERE Southeast Asia
SIZE 10 m
anaconda (Eunectes murinus)
WHEN Current affairs
WHERE South America
SIZE 9 m
CONSULTANCY Augustin Martinelli, PhD in paleontology and stratigraphy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and David Polly, paleontologist from the University of Indiana (USA)
SOURCES Websites Smithsonian Channel, About, BBC, Los Angeles Times It is Science DailyMuseum of the University of Nebraska, Encyclopedia Britannica and magazine Nature