10 Vicious Details Surrounding Titanoboa, The Largest Prehistoric Snake

6 /10 Aquatic Lifestyle

Maintaining life-supporting body temperature in the tropics didn’t have to be difficult for Titanoboa. Swampy waters became the savior in unrelenting heat.

Each time the snake felt too much cool temperature when submerged, it could easily make way to the surface and enjoy the sun.

The area where the fossils were unearthed indicates that Titanoboa had perished to river bottoms, keeping the remains well-protected from the elements and scavengers.

However, it remains unclear when exactly or why Titanoboa went extinct. A significant change in the ecosystem and ambient temperature might have contributed to their demise.

5 /10 Ambush Hunter

Considering the size and how it would have made a Titanoboa slither most sluggishly on land, the snake was likely an ambush hunter.

It just didn’t have the kind of agility required to dart around or, let alone engage in a chase.

In water, however, a Titanoboa can be agile (at least more than it could be on dry ground) enough to launch an attack and squeeze the life out of the victim.

They fed on other reptiles such as turtles, crocodiles, and fish, which must have been larger than their descendants today.

4 /10 Blindingly Fast Strike

Anacondas also do the same thing. When hunting, they lie and wait in shallow water, either completely submerged (as they can hold their breath for up to 45 minutes) or with only the nose poking out of the water.

On land, they conceal the big long body underneath rotting leaves and other debris for camouflage, then make a sudden, blindingly quick strike when an unsuspecting prey comes within their reach.

Anacondas do bite their game, but they kill by suffocation. They constrict the victims unmercifully tight; the pressure renders the circulatory system to a halt.

3 /10 Big Prey

South America had an average temperature of moderate 91 degrees Fahrenheit about 55 – 60 million years ago, but it was 10-degree warmer than today.

All reptiles are cold-blooded animals, so Titanoboa were not the only members of the species to grow out of proportion. The prey, including turtles and crocodiles, also earned the advantage from the warm habitat.

That said, a 5-foot long turtle or 20-foot crocodile were easy meals for a Titanoboa.

At around the same epoch, the only possible competitor from the snake family was Gigantophis which could grow to 33 feet long.

2 /10 Good Swimmer

When it comes to swimming, giant snakes are about the same as sloths; very slow on land, yet elegant in water. Scientists believed Titanoboa must have behaved in a more or less similar manner.

The simulated weightlessness thanks to the buoyant force brought undeniable advantage to the snake simply because it just wouldn’t have been able to get around well on land.

Titanoboa almost certainly spent most of its time in the water. The geological condition of the area where the fossils were preserved and the inferred size of the snake made such a conclusion a valid assessment.

1 /10 Clay And Coal

The fossils of Titanoboa were unearthed from a large open-pit coal mine. Since coal is essentially a product of plant remains submerged in water, every skeleton was buried under multiple layers of sediment above it.

In return, the fossils do not decay as rapidly as in other types of environments.

Throughout tens of millions of years, layers of sediment turned into varying types of rock. Miners, while working around the rocks for decades, are, of course, more interested in the plant-derived coal, not the rocks.