Titanoboa: The King of Snakes

        The green anaconda is considered one of the largest snakes in the world. It can grow up to 30 feet tall and can weigh up to 550 pounds. These are rookie numbers compared to the largest snake to ever live, the Titanoboa. This beast resided in the jungles of South America nearly 60 million years ago, 5 million years after the dinosaurs had gone extinct. The Titanoboa could grow up to 50 feet long and weighed a whopping 2,500 pounds. The most frightening part, however, is that these creatures didn’t kill their prey using venom like a cobra would. In fact, they are assumed to be constrictors, a classification of snakes that kill their prey by squeezing them to death. This is scary enough but now imagine that the constrictor isn’t a 550-pound snake but a 2500-pound one. Even scarier than all of that is the fact that these animals ate their prey whole. Now, other snakes eat their prey whole too, such as the boa constrictor. The difference, though, is that the Titanoboa could swallow a crocodile whole with half the effort of an anaconda. The reason evolution let a beast like this exist in the first place is because of climate. The climate of the Titanoboa was extremely hot, averaging around 90 degrees. Cold-blooded animals, like snakes, need heat to work at maximum efficiency and South America’s climate gives it just that. With that amount of heat, an animal can be humongous and still work at maximum capacity. Regardless of why or how this animal is so huge, one thing is for sure: this snake is freaking scary. 

Source: https://allthatsinteresting.com/titanoboa-snake