Giant snake fossil offers clues to ancient climate

Scientists have found a 60-million-year old fossil of the world's largest snake, a 13-meter, 1-ton behemoth dubbed Titanoboa, in a coal mine in Colombia, the US Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute says.

"The discovery of Titanoboa challenges our understanding of past climates and environments, as well as the biological limitations on the evolution of giant snakes," said Jason Head, member of the Panama-based research institute and lead author of the study published Thursday in Nature magazine.

"This shows how much more information about the history of Earth there is to glean from a resource like the reptile-fossil record," said the assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

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