Titanoboa: New York's Grand Central Terminal Displays Model Of Biggest Snake Ever (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Titanoboa, the biggest snake that ever lived, is taking a bite out of the Big Apple.

Well, not quite. But a scientifically realistic, life-sized model of the long-extinct serpent has taken up residence in New York City' Grand Central Terminal. The model represents a 48-foot titanoboa that would have weighed a ton and a half, according to a written statement issued by the Smithsonian Channel.

The channel is scheduled to premiere Titanoboa: Monster Snake, a two-hour special about the colossal constrictor, on Sunday, April 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The snake model is intended to "scare the daylights out of people" in an effort to "communicate science to a lot of people," Smithsonian spokesman Randall Kremer said, the International Business Times reported.

The model is based on a fossilized bone of a titanoboa that was discovered in a Colombian Coal mine in 2002, according to the statement. It is scheduled to remain at the terminal today and tomorrow, Friday, March 23, and then go on display on the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/titanoboa-new-york-grand-central-giant-snake_n_1373058.html?ref=topbar

Titanoboa - The Largest Snake Ever Lived

The largest snake the world has ever known — as long as a school bus and as heavy as a small car — ruled tropical ecosystems only 6 million years after the demise of the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex, according to a new discovery published in the journal Nature.

Partial skeletons of a new giant, boa constrictor-like snake named “Titanoboa” found in Colombia by an international team of scientists and now at the University of Florida are estimated to be 42 to 45 feet long, the length of the T-Rex “Sue” displayed at Chicago’s Field Museum, said Jonathan Bloch, a UF vertebrate paleontologist who co-led the expedition with Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobotanist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

Researchers say the extinct snake was even larger than the wildest dreams of directors of modern horror movies.

“Truly enormous snakes really spark people’s imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood,” said Bloch, who is studying the snake at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie ‘Anaconda’ is not as big as the one we found.” 


Read on : http://incredipedia.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/titanboa-largest-snake-ever-lived.html