Largest Prehistoric Snake On Record Discovered In Colombia

minimen writes "Scientists have recovered fossils of a 60-million-year-old South American snake. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1140 kg (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. 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)."

Cumulative estimation error

[Bob-taro]

I'm not saying this isn't interesting or that the estimates are completely worthless, but we find some fossilized snake vertebrae, make an educated guess as to what part of the the snake they came from, extrapolate based on modern snake proportions the size and weight of the entire snake, then estimate the temperature of this snake's original environment based on that size. I'm no biologist, so maybe it's more accurate than it sounds, but it seems there is a pretty significant margin of error at each step, not to mention a lot of assumptions.

Re:First snake on a plane

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick some wings on that apostrophe, 'cuz it needs to fly away. You don't use an apostrophe to pluralize.