Titanoboa - Titanic Boa Fossil is World Largest Snake -

dexa

Titanoboa - Titanic Boa Fossil From Colombia Is World's Largest Snake



This artist's rendering of Titanoboa cerrejonensis demonstrates the
great snake's size. It is anticipated the boa spent much of its life in
or near water.  Photo by: Jason Bourque, University of Florida.


Excavations in Colombia co-organized by Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History, have unearthed fossil remains of a new snake species they named Titanoboa cerrejonensis.

Surrounded by huge trucks extracting coal from Cerrejon, one of the world's largest open-pit mines, researchers discovered fossilized bones of super-sized snakes and their prey, crocodiles and turtles, in the Cerrejon Formation, along with fossilized plant material from the oldest known rainforest in the Americas, which flourished at the site 58-60 million years ago.

Estimated Titanoboa size: 42 feet (13 meters); 1140 kilograms. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest snake ever measured was 10 meters (33 feet) in length. The heaviest snake, a python, weighed 183 kilograms (403 pounds).

Jason Head, the lead author of the new species description in the journal Nature, is a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Head, with David Polly, associate professor of geosciences at Indiana University, used the ratio between vertebral size and the length of existing snakes to estimate that this boa-like snake must have reached 13 meters (42 feet) in length and weighed more than a ton.

Titanoboa, as it is now called, is the largest snake ever known, and was the largest non-marine vertebrate from the epoch immediately following the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

"The discovery of Titanoboa challenges our understanding of past climates and environments, as well as the biological limitations on the evolution of giant snakes." said Head "This shows how much more information about the history of Earth there is to glean from a resource like the reptile fossil record."


University of Florida graduate student Jason Bourque (left) demonstrates how a rib
would have articulated onto a vertebra of the largest snake the world has ever known
on Dec. 17, 2008. Partial skeletons of the giant, boa-constrictor-like snake named
Titanoboa,€

dexa

holy smoke, eh... .speechless tengok  illustration titanoboa ni.. besar nya....
tak tahu nak comment apa... sebab terkejut kambeng sangat -

tapi fascinating... very fascinating...   selama2 ni ingat anaconda species python
yang paling besar di dunia ni.. tapi rupanya zaman dulu... ada lagi yang lebih besar
nama dia pun... macam 'gah' la juga...--

besar betul ular ni.. -- hopefully tak ada la kat amazon lagi ular yang sampai
45 feet ni....   (tapi  mungkin ada nanti  kalau di buat movie   tajuk ---
titanoboa....  harus pergi tengok nanti ni -- )

dexa

BARU-BARU ini saintis menemui fosil ular yang amat besar di Columbia, Amerika Tengah. Saiznya sepanjang dinosaur terbesar, Tyrannosaurus Rex dengan panjang 13 meter, berat melebihi 1,000 kilogram dan lebar badan melebihi satu meter seperti dilapor agensi berita Reuters yang memetik daripada jurnal Nature.

Berdasarkan jurnal itu, fosil yang digelar Titanoboa itu hidup lebih 60 juta tahun dulu, apabila dunia binatang sedang cuba mengadaptasi dengan kepupusan dinosaur dan makhluk lain apabila asteroid dari angkasa lepas jatuh di Mexico. Bayangkan saiznya jika Titanoboa boleh makan buaya, ikan besar dan penyu.  -bh-

sayapghaib

Kalau dalam cerita hikayat Melayu dulu-dulu, ular ni digelar Saktimuna wal Kalimuna.Dalam sejarah Kedah ada diceritakan ular ini pernah mengganas dipulau Langkasuka(Langkawi) sehingga ada seorang wali yang bertindak berhadapan dengan ular ini bagi tujuan membunuhnya.Mengikut cerita orang-orang tua di Langkawi, satu ketika dulu rangka ular yang berjaya dibunuh oleh wali tersebut(beliau juga terkorban) boleh dilihat disebuah gua di Langkawi.Tapi akibat pihak berkuasa kita tak alert menda ni semua, kajian tidak dijalankan walaupun pada masa tu ada penduduk yg melaporkan perkara ini.Kalau diorang buat kajian maybe negara kita pun boleh ada fosil ular Sawa raksasa ni.

sekngucing

dlm sastera melayu lama, dikhabarkan alam ni terjadi dari tubuh badan ular sakti muna itu