Largest snake in the world comes to ISU
The world’s largest snake is now in Pocatello’s backyard.
The Idaho Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University just got a large snake replica as part of its new exhibit.
“We couldn’t be more happy to finally bring this snake to Idaho,” said Leif Tapanila, the museum director.
That snake is Titanoboa, a member of the boa constrictor and anaconda family. It lived after the dinosaur period, about 60 million years ago.
Fossils of the snake were found in Colombia in 2002 and it was originally thought to be a different reptile.
“When it was first discovered, they found a piece of a backbone that they thought originally was from a crocodile, until a snake expert looked at it and said ‘No, no, no, that’s actually the backbone of a snake,'” said Tapanila. “Your normal large python or boa constrictor has a backbone about the size of your thumb. This backbone piece is the size of your fist.”
That means they found a snake with a vertebrae twice the size of a modern whale’s.
“What that meant is they had found a ridiculously, ridiculously huge snake,” said Tapanila.
And the replica was built to scale.
Titanoboa was 48 feet long and 26 inches wide. At 2,500 pounds, it would take about 20 people weighing roughly 130 pounds each to equal one Titanoboa.
“This animal is now extinct,” said Tapanila. “It no longer lives today, but we have the fossil record to show us what this animal was like. And paleontologists are trying to figure out what this animal ate, how it lived and behaved in this ancient world.”
What they’ve discovered is that Titanoboa lived in warmer, tropical climates. It ate mostly fish, turtles and crocodiles.
Titanoboa lived in the water, not on land. It also was not venomous. Scientists aren’t sure exactly what led to the snake’s extinction, but they believe global warming and severe climate change may have been factors.
This replica belongs to the Smithsonian and is a traveling exhibit. ISU will have the replica for three months.
The exhibit opens to the public Saturday at 9 a.m.
