3D Models of 3 different snake specimens. On the picture, vertebrae and ribs.
Titanoboa is the largest snake that has ever been discovered by science. Colombian scientists were working with paleontologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Nebraska in the early 2000s in the Cerrejon coal mine in Colombia to try and reconstruct the ecosystem by excavating plant fossils. During these excavations large vertebrae were found, but the scientists were unsure of what animal these bones came from. Once back in the lab and prepared from the surrounding coal, it became clear that the bones were from a massive snake. Some of the questions scientists asked about the Paleocene (60-58 Ma) snake were “How long was this animal?” and “What can it tell us about the environment 60 million years ago?” We will also attempt to answer these questions using 3D print-outs of Titanoboa vertebrae.
Lessons
Videos
Access to a collection of short videos from the Smithsonian
You can access the full movie through Netflix
Articles
New pelomedusoid turtles from the late Palaeocene Cerrejón Formation of Colombia and their implications for phylogeny and body size evolution.
www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjsp20#.VQdIvkuFb1o
A new blunt-snouted dyrosaurid, Anthracosuchus balrogus gen. et sp. nov. (Crocodylomorpha, Mesoeucrocodylia), from the Palaeocene of Colombia.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2014.918968
Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics
reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7230/full/nature07671.html
Late Paleocene fossils from the Cerrejon Formation, Colombia, are the earliest record
of Neotropical rainforest.
Wing et al. 2009.
