According to new research, a giant prehistoric snake, larger than a bus, slithered across what is now India 47 million years ago.
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The study, published last Thursday (18) in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests that the extinct snake (Vasuki indicus) may have been one of the largest ever, surpassing anacondas and pythons that can grow up to about 6 meters.
The snake was likely a slow-moving ambush predator, specializing in constricting or squeezing its prey to death. “There are several possible reasons for its large size,” said co-authors Debajit Datta, postdoctoral researcher, and Sunil Bajpai, professor of paleontology at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, to CNN via email.
“[These reasons] range from a favorable environment with ample food resources to a lack of natural predators. Another driving force could be the prevalence of warmer climatic conditions than those currently experienced.”
The two authors of the report analyzed 27 fossilized vertebrae that were discovered in 2005 in a coal mine in western India. Based on the size of the preserved vertebrae, the researchers estimated that the snake would have been between 10.9 and 15.2 meters long, based on two different calculation methods, with a wide cylindrical body.
However, the authors emphasized that the estimates of body length “should be treated with caution” because they did not have a complete skeleton to analyze. Nevertheless, the snake would have rivaled in size with the extinct Titanoboa, the largest known species of snake.
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