• Question from:paul

I've read about a giant snake called titanoboa. I've also read that it was warmer when this snake lived. There are other environmental problems,but would the difference in the warmth of the paleogene and today prevent a titanoboa sized snake from living today?  This thing lived in water,and that's a heat sink, but the issue is still warmth. I was thinking about a terrestrial snake. Could this hypothetical snake live today? 

Thank you

You know, I reading this email,realized that it looks like a disguised homework question,altered it to make it look like it wasn't,then altered it again and it still did. Maybe it's just me,but I think I once saw something like this on test or quiz or something. It's a fine line though.

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  • University of Exeter
  • Posts: 1,011

I think its probably difficult to give a definitive answer... so I guess it's an unsatisfying "maybe"!

The original paper used our understanding of snake thermal biology (based on currently extant species) to try and infer the temperature when Titanoboa lived. While this is reasonable, there are a number of assumptions being made here, that people have argued about. There's a set of comments, and a reply from the authors of the original study you can look at here.

http://web.stanford.edu/group/denny/Pub … e_2009.pdf