who is 'titanboa'? Define it characteristic
Answers
itanoboa, /tiˌtɑːnoʊˈboʊə/ is an extinct genus of snakes that is known to have lived in present-day La Guajira in northeastern Colombia. Fossils of Titanoboa have been found in the Cerrejón Formation, and date to around 58 to 60 million years ago. The giant snake lived during the Middle to Late Paleocene epoch, a 10-million-year period immediately following the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. The only known species is Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the largest snake ever discovered, which supplanted the previous record holder, Gigantophis.
The gigantic snake could swallow a crocodile, but amazingly just a few years ago, scientists didn't have a clue that it ever existed. With its giant size, the Titanoboa is very much like the snakes featured in the Hollywood horror snake movies, it's a good thing it is extinct.
Without the competition of the dinosaurs, this snake was the largest predator on the planet Earth for about 10 million years. Thought to be the ancestor of the boa constrictor and anacondas, the Titanoboa wasn't a venomous snake, but instead a very large constrictor snake.
Like most modern snake species, they were expert ambush predators, capable of striking at an incredible speed at unsuspecting prey. It was capable of crushing its unfortunate prey with the constricting force of 400 lbs per square inch.
With its massive size, the Titanoboa probably spent most of its time in the water, much like the green anacondas found nowadays in the amazon forest.